


Echoes

by diadoumenos



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Awkward Crush, Character Study, Developing Friendships, Dreams vs. Reality, Dubious Consent, First Time, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mind Games, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smart Finn, The Last Jedi never happened, Torture, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadoumenos/pseuds/diadoumenos
Summary: “I want you to watch over Finn,” Leia said.Poe grumbled a few choice words under his breath at that. His life was a minefield.  Each night, Kylo Ren invaded his dreams.  Each day had become a battle not to come apart at the seams as a result.  Last week, he had passed out in the middle of a meeting.  He did not need the responsibility of another human being foisted on him when he was doing such a poor job managing just the one.Set one month after the Force Awakens.  The Last Jedi did not happen.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren
Comments: 47
Kudos: 81





	1. The Emergency

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote 'Echoes' the week after The Force Awakens came to theaters - I literally curled up in a blanket with my laptop and wrote for a week straight. My fingers couldn't move fast enough. I've sat on it for several years, revisiting it whenever I needed my stormpilot fix, because that's why I write. I write for ME.
> 
> But we're at the end of this road... and I figured it wouldn't hurt to share my journey with these boys. We've come a long way, and I love them dearly.
> 
> If the secondary pairing doesn't appeal to you... bear with me. This is 100% a stormpilot story.

### Echoes

_Despair seeps through his veins like poison in a tainted river. It is black and unctuous, inextricable from serpentine waters, and carries whispers of shame deep in its current._

Head hanging low, Poe struggles to hold back tears. He has compromised everything. Everyone. BB-8. Luke Skywalker. The Resistance. His general. He has failed them all.

His training had counted for nothing. Had vanished into the air like a tendril of smoke in a windstorm. It had taken mere seconds for Kylo Ren to find what he sought: a fleeting image of BB-8 vanishing over the dunes of Jakku. Poe knows how to withstand fancy interrogator droids, how to mentally retreat from the crackling zaps of scan grids… but he has no experience with this. His mind feels violated. Stripped down. Scoured to the core.

A chuckle resonates across the glossy black chambers. Poe struggles to lift his eyelids, but they are heavy; weighted with lead anguish. It takes several tries before he manages a bleary glance upwards.

Kylo Ren looms at the threshold, mask as expressionless and forbidding as ever. Arms criss-cross his chest; his head cants to the side.

Poe’s mind founders in a fog. The mire delays the stabbing realization that the nightmare is not over. Poe’s pulse pumps an absurd staccato. _Why? What more could he want?_

“Your despair…” Kylo muses as if Poe had voiced his query aloud. Perhaps he had? “It’s beautiful.”

Kylo advances. Each sinister step, each hefty thud of reinforced boot, sends Poe’s heart racing a little faster. His proximity incites in Poe a claustrophobia that he has never experienced before, sequestered as he usually is in cramped cockpits.

“It calls to me.” Kylo’s hand rises to splay over Poe’s breast, fingers curling as if able to detect the frantic beats mere inches away. “Despair is a rarity in this floating lug of metal. Too often enveloped by ego. Hidden behind bravado and foolishness. Lost in the empty minds of pawns. But this… this is what it is about.”

Kylo removes his right glove to reveal long, pale fingers. There is something disarming about them. Something unexpectedly human in the blue veins that branch from wrist to fingers like a delicate sea plant ever reaching toward the light. They are unearthly pale.

Kylo thumbs the top button of Poe’s shirt.

Poe is confused, frustrated, as cold fingers inch down to loosen the next. Kylo moves with unnerving care. Easy dexterity. Everything is a game with this creature. Why not rip the buttons from their threads? Why such restraint?

“Let me teach you something about despair.”

Poe feels his eyes widen. “No thanks.” His voice is an ugly marriage of gravel and panic. Neither lends his words their intended nonchalance. “Your last lesson proved quite effective.”

Kylo leans forward, mask so close Poe can almost imagine a breath upon his cheek. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to try.”

“You’ve got thousands of stormtroopers. Experiment on one of them.”

“I thought you wanted me to rethink my technique? Something tells me that tongue of yours gets you into trouble frequently.”

“Out of it, more often,” Poe mutters.

There is an air of sardonic humor in the tilt of Kylo’s helmet, as if to say: _‘your track record would suggest otherwise.’_ It clashes with everything Poe knows of this creature.

When Kylo levels his hand over Poe’s bared chest, any hint of levity extinguishes in the pyroclastic heat of _pain_. Poe manages to steal a breath before crackles of alien blue light shoot from the tips of Kylo’s fingers. His body reacts before his brain can register. It is _excruciating_. It feels like hundreds of live wires fed into his every nerve. They spark and burn. His blood boils. 

Poe’s body gives a dramatic jolt as the sensation slashes through his system.

Kylo asks no questions. Poe waits for one. _Where is the Resistance Base? What is their next plan of attack? What news of Luke Skywalker?_ It has to be an interrogation. There is no other reason to inflict such agony.

Kylo Ren remains quiet, though his outstretched hand wavers as if braced beneath a great weight.

Poe’s back arches, shuddering against the restraints eclipsing his wrists, then slams against the table. A second later, it bows out again. He cannot control it. He cannot shut it out. He wants to ask why, maybe even fire a biting insult, but his teeth are gritted too tightly. He prays for the black - for the sweet nothingness of unconsciousness to take him from this place - but he is mercilessly anchored in the present.

Above the roaring in his ears, Poe detects a labored note to Kylo’s breaths. “Give into it,” Kylo hisses.

Poe squeezes his eyes shut. Tears escape the corners and trail into his hairline. 

_He screams._ He screams like he has never done in his life.

The sparks extinguish in a swirl of blue smoke. Something heavy thuds against the floor and cool hands cup Poe’s cheeks. Lips press against his. Poe jolts back in surprise, but before he can process the unexpected kiss, Kylo has already retreated.

A cheek presses to Poe’s. The chill of his skin is jarring.

“I wanted to taste it.” 

The breathy admission makes Poe’s stomach roll.

Poe’s body continues to jerk and jolt as phantom shocks reverberate through his system. He turns his head away. Tries to create distance. It is not much, but it is the only agency he has. He cannot get the Darkness out of his mouth. Out of his body.

His efforts seem to amuse Kylo. He folds his arms across Poe’s chest and regards him frankly. His weight is solid and heavy despite his slender frame; a boulder shaken loose during a quake.

Poe sneaks a glance out of the corner of his eye. He cannot resist.

Kylo is not what he expects. His face is not disfigured and ugly. It does not reflect his dark soul with warts and pockmarks and eyes black as the abyss. Where he had anticipated a monster’s countenance, there is strange beauty. Kylo Ren is an abstract study in angles and generous features. His eyes are dark and piercing.

It is a face of evil.

Poe wants to spit in his face, bonus if he gets his eye, but everything hurts. Foolhardy and mouthy though he is, Poe apparently retains this last iota of self-preservation.

Kylo’s finger traces the planes of Poe’s cheek, chases the lone tear trailing down it. “You did well,” he says. “Force lightning brings sensitives to their knees, squealing like crushed animals. You are a fascinating creature, indeed. Where does one like you — without a stitch of Force flowing through your veins — gain such strength?”

“Loyalty to my general, I guess.” Poe’s throat is raw from screaming. “She’s a tiny thing, but her strength of character casts a shadow greater than the tallest creature. Have you met her?” His attempt at cheekiness is downplayed by the minute tremors still wracking his body.

Kylo’s smirk fades. “Think you’re funny, do you?”

Poe eyes Kylo, really looks at him, and thinks of his general. She is a beacon of light in this vast universe; a symbol of honor and generosity in a time when both are rare qualities. How could she have begotten such a monster?

“You sure you’re not adopted?” Poe asks, just for spite.

Knowing the strike is coming does not make it any less painful. Poe’s head whips to the side. His temple strikes the table. He might lose the contents of his stomach — what little is left from his distant dinner with Lor San Tekka — so he lies still and counts his breaths.

“I should like to know what makes you tick, Poe Dameron.”

“Basic survival instinct. Nothing ground-breaking.”

Kylo’s disconcerting gaze assesses him for a time before he kneels to retrieve his mask from the floor.

_“I think I’ll keep you.”_

* * *

Poe surged awake with a choked sob.

The sterile black walls of the interrogation room melted before his eyes to reveal the familiar earthen walls and sagging ceiling of Poe’s personal quarters on Lakemon.

Poe gasped for breath. For equilibrium. Despite the firm mattress pressed to his back, his body felt suspended, held cock-eyed and conversely upside-down. His hands grappled for a hold; anything to anchor him to reality. One palm curled around his nightstand’s chipped edge while the other braced the wall.

The acrid scent of burnt flesh and ozone lingered in the air. It sent bile crawling up the throat.

“Calm down,” Poe ordered himself. His chest felt tight, as if his lungs had drawn too much air, but could not release it. The nightstand rattled in his clasp. “Breathe.”

Poe measured his breaths until the pattering of his pulse settled into a less frenetic pace.

He was safe. It was over.

His writhing had torn the bedclothes free. Drafts of chilly air scrabbled across his skin like an insect, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Lakemon was cold. It was no Hoth, as the older generation liked to point out in tones that translated to: _quit complaining._ And they were right. No extremities had frozen solid — _yet_ , Poe thought — and the ships seemed to start up just fine. It was a dry planet, which meant no snow, although the inhospitable bite of its ever-present winds more than compensated for the lack of white dunes. Leia had a mean sense of humor to relocate them from sub-tropical D’Qar to _this._

Night painted a spooky dreamscape upon Poe’s quarters. Suspended roots crept through the rafters like skeletal fingers, silhouettes spindly and reaching. Grotesque shadows crawled across the walls. It was disquieting. Like a dream.

The dream. As far back as Poe could remember, he had dreamt in abstracts. A color. Cool water. A voice. The glide of a finger upon skin. The luminescence of twin moons hanging low in the sky. He could not remember ever slipping into old memories. _Reliving_ old memories.

Poe turned onto his side, legs curled close. He had been tortured before. None had ever left him like this — clutching ragged blankets to his frame and haunted by wretched memories. The man had broken him.

_Your despair. It calls to me._

The room was quiet. Dark. Too dark. Black filled the room like smoke. The corners taunted like black holes. Anyone could hide in them, watch him sleep. Play with his mind.

_I think I’ll keep you._

Poe kicked the entwined bedclothes away and vaulted out of bed.

Outside the door, he promptly tripped over BB-8, who had been speeding down the vacant corridor at full tilt from the opposite direction. Poe reeled into the opposite wall with a ragged: “Ooph!”

“Mother of Malachor!” gruffed the occupant of the room. “It’s the middle of the kriffin’ night!”

Poe massaged his smarting shins. “BB-8, what in the blue blazes—”

BB-8 erupted into a series of beeps and chortles so staccato as to be more a blur than individual coding.

“Slow down. I can’t understand you.”

Poe braced BB-8’s jittering sphere with steadying hands and caught two distinguishable words in the slur — ‘emergency’ and ‘medbay.’

Crisis mode usurped his senses like fog eclipsing the viewport on entry to a thermal water planet. It could be anything. An attack. A hacked droid going blaster-happy on the medics. The fusion core shorting out and spitting sparks into a room with high concentration oxygen. A ceiling collapse. A Lakemonian mole; reportedly extinct, but Poe had learned to put little credence in rumors that, when wrong, could portend the surprise arrival of a multi-ton rodent.

Poe sprinted down the corridor.

The Resistance had chosen Lakemon for its abandoned network of tunnels. Ancient nomads had excavated deep into the steppes to escape the extreme temperatures and cutting wind. The tunnels’ depth exploited what little warmth the core had to offer. It had been a strong choice for relocation, considering how little scaffolding its infrastructure would require to accommodate the Resistance. Nothing was ever that easy, however. The tunnels courted problems like the First Order courted mindless radicals.

The rickety doors to the medbay sprang open with a metallic wheeze as Poe clamored through. He skidded to a halt at the sight of… nothing.

Where he had expected to stumble into noise and chaos — medics bustling or fighters arming to take down a nebulous threat — Poe stood alone. Tendrils of dust glittered in the artificial light. The medbay lights were set to twilight; a soft, lethargic glow.

BB-8 peaked in, visibly reluctant to enter. Poe turned to scold him for the false alarm when footsteps pealed around the far corner.

It was a young medic, hair askew and eyes blown wide. She lurched to a halt at the sight of him. “Commander!” Relief radiated from her features. Her harried laugh was more a sigh than anything resembling joviality. “Come quickly.”

“Me?” Poe glanced behind, as if there might be another commander dawdling in the doorway at sith o’clock in the morning. He could not fathom why _he_ would be the first call for a medical emergency. His rapport with the medbay was infamous. The medics made a habit of meeting him on the landing platform, knowing full well that he would not come to them of his own volition. He was of the mind that a bacta bandage and nap would fix anything. If all else failed, alcohol worked wonders.

“Well, I was just…” he gestured over his shoulder, but she caught his elbow in a surprisingly firm grip and steered him towards the back hallway. “Yeah, okay, no problem.”

“You’re the only one we could think to call.”

“Me?”

“He doesn’t know where he is,” she explained in a rush. “He thinks we’re the First Order.”

“Who… _Finn?_ Finn’s awake?”

It had been over a month.

A panicked, cornered stormtrooper was one thing. The clones had been easy to predict — nine times out of ten they responded to dangerous stimuli identically — but this new genus had their decidedly lethal moments, as the Resistance had found to their expense. They were trickier to read. Difficult to anticipate. They had minds of their own. They problem-solved.

A crowd had formed at Finn’s doorway, bottlenecked and unmoving, as if no one actually wanted in.

Poe dove into the fray, pivoting around elbows and ducking the odd tentacle. As he shoved someone aside, he heard a loud crash followed by a hoarse, but distinctive voice shouting: “Where’s Rey? What have you done with her?”

Bursting past the frontline, Poe stopped in his tracks as Finn brandished a metal rod and caught a young Rodian in the shoulder. The medic careened into the wall.

Poe froze, stunned speechless, at the scene.

The scattered contents of an overturned cart littered the tile floor. A stunner had spun out of reach. Two medics lie sprawled amidst the debris, one clutching his midsection, the other cradling bloodied knuckles. Gruesome pools of red covered the floor. Finn stood in the center of the blood — the source of it, Poe realized — wielding what looked like the side rail of his bed.

As Poe stared, jaw hanging open, Finn’s gaze found his.

Recognition eased the furrow of Finn’s brows, softened the snarl of his lips. His eyes widened.

Poe could only imagine the sight _he_ made. His bed-head tended to resemble a great tentacled beast on the attack, and his nightshirt draped off him like sagging sharpani skin. Poe had rescued it from the toss pile, liking the softness of the worn fabric, though the sleeves extended past his palms in a way reminiscent of his prepubescence. He had been a short and pudgy kid, who prayed nightly for a growth spurt to stretch him out. He was still short by general standards, but no longer pudgy. Thank the stars for the Resistance’s poor dietary options.

“P—Poe?” Finn’s voice quivered.

Not sure what else to do, Poe waved. “Hey, Buddy.”

“Poe.” The makeshift weapon slipped from Finn’s fingers and struck the floor with a jarring clank. Several medics jumped. Finn’s body listed suddenly, the adrenaline visibly deserting him.

Poe dashed forward to catch his upper arms. “Whoa! Steady,” he said with a reassuring smile.

Finn managed a weak imitation. Up close, his eyes were dilated and unfocused. Despite Poe’s grasp, he continued to sway.

Worried that Finn might veer again, Poe shifted his weight… right into a pool of blood. His bare foot flew out and his legs did a comical almost-split, then skated back and forth, seeking purchase on the slippery floor, before they were both falling. Poe managed to yank Finn forward— _hard_ —and twist them mid-fall. His body clapped the floor with a bone-jarring thud a split second before Finn’s chest met his, stealing his breath, and forehead knocked into Poe’s temple.

“Poe,” Finn repeated. His voice was almost conversational. Delirious.

Stars danced before Poe’s eyes. “Finn?”

“Where’s Rey? Is she okay?”

Poe coughed, trying to catch his breath. Finn’s weight on his ribcage precluded any such achievement. By the stars, there had better not be broken ribs. “She’s fine. I suggest you worry about yourself.”

Finn made a little sound. “I think I’m bleeding.”

Poe would have laughed if not for the herd of hoofed beasts prancing inside his skull. The sensation of Finn’s blood seeping into his hair sent his stomach turning.

“You’re lucky I broke your fall, or there’d be a lot more.”

Finn huffed a laugh. “I’m lucky you’re my friend. You are my friend, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Poe said, dizzy.

There was a long pause.

“Never had one before,” Finn mused.

Before Poe could respond, Finn’s body went limp. His face settled in the crook of Poe’s neck, breath hot. Poe waited a moment, just to be sure, then waved to the stunned medic crew.

They hovered at the doorway, silent.

Poe cast them a peevish look. “I’m going to start charging tickets.”

That lit their thruster engines. The crowd diffused, most retreating into the atrium while a small handful rushed to hoist Finn up. Dazed, Poe inhaled deeply once, twice, and strove to catch the rest of his breath. His head swam.

A circle of medics converged on Finn’s bed, barking commands to repair the damage to his back before he lost more blood.

A chirp to Poe’s left announced BB-8’s delayed arrival. The droid produced a kerchief at the end of one manipulator arm. Poe smiled and levered himself into a sitting position. He’d need several kerchiefs to soak the blood, but it was the thought that counted. 

“Thanks, pal.”

The medic from earlier knelt beside him, eyes narrow and assessing. Her name-tag read: Lemma.

“Is Finn going to be okay?”

“He has set his convalescence back, but he’ll be fine.” Her tone was distracted, as if she did not want to talk about Finn.

Poe started to nod, but aborted when his vision went shaky.

“On the bright side,” he said, “no more speculation whether he’ll walk again.”

Lemma’s lips pursed, ignoring the cheeky comment. Her hand grazed the side of his face, gloved hands insistent until they found the knot at his temple.

Poe jerked away.

“Your head.”

“Doubt anyone will notice.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me help you up.”

A voice cleared itself in the doorway.

Poe blinked at the baffling sight of Leia standing before them in her nightclothes. Her hair was as bedraggled as he had ever seen it — which meant one braid had come loose — and she wore slippers, of all things. It was a most incongruous vision. On anyone else, it might have been comical. On her, it spoke worlds of the gravity of her presence.

“General?”

“Commander. A word.”

Lemma opened her mouth to protest. Her hand tightened around Poe’s forearm as if to stave any attempts at escape. Poe gave her wrist a reassuring pat. “I’ll be okay.”

His feet did another embarrassing slip-slide on the red-smeared floor. He clutched Lemma for support, then exited into the atrium ahead of his general.


	2. Leia's Request

Poe beelined for the nearest sink. Its faucet spat and coughed a startling mixture of dirty water and air before a paltry stream burbled out.

Poe ducked his head under the current and raked chilly handfuls through his hair. Contorted stripes of red — Finn’s blood — splintered across the basin like wild vines.

Leia tilted her hip against the counter.

“Are you okay?”

Poe wanted to laugh, but if he opened his mouth, it might come out a sob. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

It was a loaded question; almost cruel. In a single month, he had witnessed the slaughter of an entire village, been captured and tortured by a Force-wielding madman (who also happened to be _her_ son), crash-landed alone and lost on Jakku thinking he had gotten his exuberant savior killed, watched billions of people perish as the First Order obliterated the Hosnian system, and now the aforementioned madman haunted his sleep. Not to mention he was pretty sure he had a concussion, but that was minutia.

Leia said nothing for a time. She read people well. If Luke’s power was the Force, this was hers. She knew people. Knew when to press; when to relent.

Poe straightened.

“He’s dangerous,” she said.

There it was.

Poe braced his hands on either side of the sink and stared, unseeing, at the interwoven lines of veined marble and splattered blood. “So, you want me to drop him off at the nearest space port? Abandon the man that saved my life and completed my mission for no reason other than I told him it was important?”

Poe considered the way Finn had flung his arms around him on the landing platform of D’Qar. His grip had squeezed the breath from Poe. Did stormtroopers hug? It felt like he had been holding onto that one for a lifetime.

“Well, I won’t do it,” Poe continued in the same breath.

He would not condemn someone who thirsted for such honest, joyful contact to a life of exile.

“We know nothing about this new breed of stormtrooper. He could be a ticking time bomb.”

“I get the sense he’s cut from a different fabric than the rest.” Poe infused his tone with as much dryness as he could command. He was not subtle when tired. Or irritated.

Leia shook her head. “Brainwashing is a vicious poison for the brain to swallow. Everyone responds differently. That’s the risk of such a program… and the brilliance.”

“He’s not going to turn on us, General.”

Leia leaned in, eyes sharp. “We don’t know that. We don’t know what they’ve done to him. How his mind works. What would it take to trigger his old training? An order? A phrase? A touch? What happens when he turns into a killing machine and using you as a human shield no longer holds him at bay?”

She did not understand. She had not seen Finn’s face just now. She had not observed how the harsh, unsettling lines about his eyes had faded to reveal utter dismay. Those who wore masks for a living had no need for poker faces. Finn had naked eyes. A face that was hesitant, but conversely open and trusting. Finn was not a mindless killer.

That was not what they looked like.

“We know that Finn risked everything to flee the First Order.” Poe crossed his arms over his chest and silently dared her to dispute him. “He could have disappeared into the black once he awoke on Jakku. He did not need to march BB-8 straight through the First Order’s fingers back to us. He did not need to sneak onto Starkiller. Why? Why do any of it? Because he believed—”

“In you?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Rey.” Poe shook his head. “That he believes in _anything_ has to count for something. There is light in him. How could there not be?”

An icy drip of water escaped the tip of one curl and landed on his neck. Poe jumped, which sent several more icicle droplets raining down.

A towel appeared in Leia’s outstretched palm. “You saw what he did back there, Poe. He was doped to the stars and bleeding profusely, yet managed to disarm three grown men and wreak havoc on the entire medbay. Between the medics, there are several bruises and one broken bone. He would have broken more had you not arrived.”

“He was disoriented.” Poe took the proffered towel and swept it through his hair.

“Or a product of the First Order’s programming. He defaulted to violence.”

“Programming? Defaulted? By the stars, he’s not a droid. He has free will.”

“Have you ever heard of a defected stormtrooper?”

“No,” Poe admitted begrudgingly.

“Then understand where I am coming from. There is no precedent for this. We must tread lightly.”

Poe chucked the towel into the sink with more force than was probably necessary. “But not at the expense of treating him as something less than human.”

“If he were to return to the First Order, consider how much he already knows about the Resistance.”

“It is a risk we need to take. And no—” Poe held up a finger when Leia opened her mouth, “—I’m not saying this because I owe him my life. He is of the First Order. If you want to learn about Hux and this newfangled ‘breed of stormtrooper,’ as you call it, he knows. He has lived it. Don’t throw away the opportunity to learn.”

“I said he’s dangerous, not that I want him gone. That was you.”

 _That_ derailed him. “Wait. What?” Poe deflated at the realization that she’d been playing with him all along. “Then why are we arguing?”

Leia smiled, playfulness resplendent in the twinkle of her eyes. “With you, it’s always an argument.”

“But—you….”

“I had to make sure you knew the stakes.”

Poe felt even more wrong-footed. “Why do I need to know the stakes?”

Leia squared her shoulders and gave Poe an _‘I am speaking as your general, right now,’_ look. Her diminutive size counted for nothing when she did that. “I want you to watch over him.”

“Watch over—what does that mean? Am I to spy on him?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Am I to be his keeper?”

He was disgusted by the word. The whole thing reeked of manipulation. Finn had endured enough of that for a lifetime. For the first time in his life, no one would direct Finn how to act, where to go, or what to believe. He could forge his own path. Until he figured out who he was independent of the First Order, independent of others, he was entitled to space. Finn did not deserve to have a keeper thrust on him to ensure that the person he chose to become was ‘not dangerous.’

“Think of it more as being… his person.”

“That makes even less sense!” Poe threw his hands up, just in case she missed his exasperation.

“He has taken a certain liking to you. Be a friend, if nothing else.”

“Is that an order?”

“I prefer to think of it as a request.”

Poe grumbled a few choice words under his breath at that. Request, his foot.

“I don’t have time. I leave in the morning for the Peleat System, then Jess and I will continue combing the ruins of the Hosian System for survivors. I will check on Finn from time to time, but I won’t babysit him for you, General. In this case, I’m not your man.”

As it was, his life was a minefield. Each night, Kylo Ren invaded his dreams and kept him from a full night's rest and peace of mind. Each day had become a battle not to come apart at the seams as a result. Poe did not need the responsibility of another human being foisted on him when he was doing such a poor job managing just the one.

“Poe.” Leia sighed, the sound deep and telling, as if she didn’t want to say what was coming next. Poe steeled himself. “I’m grounding you until further notice. You are not fit to fly.”

“Fit to—but General! That’s not… I’m not… you can’t do that!”

“You’ve been running missions left and right, not so much burning the candle at both ends, as setting it behind a fusal thrust engine during take-off. It’s time for a break. You have not taken one in weeks.”

There was a reason! The dreams were rending him apart. He was not a feelings kind of person. Gregarious and friendly, yes, but he dealt with his problems on his own. Pilots were solitary creatures by nature, accustomed to the quiet of the black and relying on oneself for survival. He was dealing with his nightmares the only way he knew how: by keeping busy. By keeping in the stars. In the cockpit, his dreams left him. The weightlessness of flight set his mind free.

A wave of dizziness overcame him. Poe stumbled against the counter. This time, it had nothing to do with the throbbing at his temple.

Leia put a hand on his shoulder. “You are not well. You haven’t been since Jakku.”

Her grasp, probably meant to be comforting, entrapped him like an iron weight. It felt like shackles land-locking him, forcing him to face his dreams head-on. He did not know how to do that. Running from them was all he knew.

“If this is your way of forcing me to watch Finn—”

“You collapsed in the middle of a meeting, Poe.”

Exhaustion had overwhelmed him during said meeting. He did not remember tumbling to the floor, but when he had opened his eyes to the bizarre sight of three commanding officers peering down at him… he remembered _that._

“Don’t take this away from me. I can fly.”

“I need to see significant improvement before I can allow you back into a cockpit. None of these bags under the eyes. Or passing out during meetings. This is a matter of safety—for both yourself and your squadron. There is something wrong, and I am giving you time to fix it. So fix it.”

Her hand squeezed his shoulder one last time. Before she disappeared through the doors, Leia paused and glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes did not quite meet his. Everything about her body language exuded contrition.

“Get some rest. _That_ is an order.”

* * *

Poe returned to the medbay an hour later, freshly cleaned and clothed in civvies. The hallways had been empty save for the earliest risers. They had gawked at him; rubbed their eyes as if beholding a once-in-a-lifetime mirage. Poe was not known to leave his quarters before dawn, unless a pressing mission dictated he leave in the dark hours of morning.

Poe hovered in the doorway and regarded the room’s unconscious occupant. The medics had positioned Finn on his stomach. All signs of the altercation had been cleared. Finn’s face was soft; free of lines and blissfully unaware of his attack on the medbay and Leia’s wariness. The floor was pristine.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe said. He did not expect a response. Given the cargo-hold of blood lost that morning, Finn probably would not awaken for days. “I guess you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”

A chair had been placed beside Finn’s bed. No doubt for Poe, courtesy of the general. It had not been there earlier.

With Rey gone, Poe was probably the only visitor Finn would get. For that, he felt awful. Poe had been preoccupied with his own duties and demons. He should have come sooner. He should have sat by Finn’s side and let him know that he was not forgotten or alone. If he had, Poe was certain Finn’s awakening would not have been so violent.

Poe eyed the chair, reluctant to accept it. To sit was to acknowledge Leia’s request. To agree that her concerns were valid. They _were_ valid. No one knew Finn and what he was capable of — least of all, Poe — but Poe wanted no part in the subterfuge required to figure it out.

His head was still spinning, however, and the chair looked positively luxurious. It had a tall backrest and stacked cushions.

“A most elegant house-arrest,” he mused aloud. He slumped into the seat and propped his heels on the edge of Finn’s bed.

Finn’s back rose and fell peacefully. Poe chewed the tip of his thumb and considered the anomaly that was this defected stormtrooper.

The reality was that he could not vouch for Finn’s character. He could not promise that Finn wouldn’t turn on them or snap with unexpected lethality one day. No one could. Finn had lived a life that none of them could understand.

Psychological manipulation was a dangerous art. Lord Sidious must have known this as he maneuvered his takeover of the Republic. An army of pirates and fanatics would have been easy to come by, but the mind of a free-thinker was a dangerous thing. It was unpredictable. Some ideas took, others did not. Personal agency drove people to question. Will I die? Is it worth it? Is it right? The clones, at least, could be trusted to act with absolute obedience. They had a shallow sense of self-awareness, and even less thought towards self-preservation. It was woven into their genetics.

This new program was a mystery. No one knew how Hux had implanted personality and behavior into his army. Verbally? Physically? Another medium; a new unknown? Knowing Hux, Poe could only imagine the atrocities. Children were sponges, absorbing the subtlest of messages, let alone the methodically implanted ones. The notion that the First Order had done anything subtly was as absurd as _The Empire: A Musical._

Questions grew upon themselves: How many ideas _had_ taken with Finn? To what degree was he beholden to the foundations laid by Hux? Could one raised in the manner of the new stormtrooper ever completely refute a lifetime of brainwashing? Why was he the only one?

As questions begot more questions, Poe felt so _small_.

The answer was that one could not know. The program was too young to ascertain lasting impacts.

Poe was struck yet again by how little he knew Finn. They had only spoken a handful of times. They were veritable strangers. Poe should not trust him, and to some extent he didn’t… but he _wanted_ to. He wanted Finn to be the real thing. No stormtrooper had ever defected, let alone joined the Resistance. That belonged in the stories of myth. But then, so did the Jedi. In Poe’s life, anything could happen. He had to believe that.

A deep sigh escaped Finn’s parted lips. Despite the cocktail of drugs coursing through his system, it would seem the medics had not induced a second coma. Finn’s eyes twitched behind closed lids, darting as if he were dreaming.

Which brought Poe back to his own dreams.

Any reservations he had concerning Finn extinguished at the memory of Finn’s deeds on the Finalizer. Finn had saved Poe from Kylo Ren. Poe would never forget that. For whatever reason, Kylo had taken that second look at him, decided to keep him past his usefulness as spiller of secrets. What Poe had done to incur this attention, he did not know, but he knew he would still be in that monster’s clutches if not for Finn. That had to mean something. If not, what meaning did the universe hold?

Poe pinched the bridge of his nose. Too much gravitas for the early morning. The first of Lakemon’s two distant suns had not even risen.

Poe opened his eyes to find Finn watching him. Poe stared back for a dumb moment until he realized: _Finn was watching him._

Poe surged forward. “You’re awake.”

The chronometer on the wall indicated mere hours since Finn’s assault on the medics.

There was a bewildered set to Finn’s gaze, as if he were trying to assess his physical state but had come up blank. Given his last awakening, the medics had probably injected him with a paralytic. They could not risk a take-two of his violent surge to consciousness.

“Can one be awake when their mind is fog?” Finn asked.

Poe shrugged. “That’s how I operate anytime before noon. Mind you, my body is not usually fifty percent drugs.”

“Might be seventy-five.”

“I’m impressed you’re not slurring. I bet they administered enough to fell a wampa.”

Finn offered a whisper of a grin, but visibly refrained from moving his head.

Poe leaned in, forearm perched on the edge of the mattress. “Are they working?”

Finn closed his eyes and grimaced. “Hurts.”

Poe gnawed his lip. “Do you want me to get a medic? We could get you up to eighty percent.”

“Mmm, no. I don’t like. Foggy.” When Finn opened his eyes, his glassy gaze found Poe’s. “You okay?”

Poe blinked. “Me? I’m fine.”

He jumped at the touch of a hand on his arm. If Finn had been given paralytics, it was a small dosage. Finn’s hand drifted across the plains of Poe’s wrist and settled over his hand. For whatever reason, words failed Poe. Finn’s skin was warm and soft against Poe’s gnarled knuckles and grease-stained fingers.

“You sure?” Finn asked, his voice not quite at volume.

Something in Poe’s chest shifted loose. Those two words validated every defense he had rallied against Leia.

How could Finn be dangerous? One could not find themselves pinned by that gaze, kindness and concern cutting through the cocktail of drugs, and find him nefarious. One could not recognize the note of genuine compassion in his scratchy voice and accuse him of corruption. Finn’s body was broken, his back sliced open, and his old life abandoned. Before him lie a road of unknowns. Yet his first question was an inquiry concerning _Poe’s_ well-being. That was not how evil worked.

“I’m not the one who has been unconscious for a month.”

“I had a nightmare.”

A deep shudder raced down Poe’s spine at the notion. “I can only imagine, what with being asleep so long.”

“I don’t have dreams.”

“Lucky.”

“They trained ‘em out of us.”

Poe’s jaw clanked shut at that baffling insight. Perhaps ‘lucky’ was not the right word. Was such a thing possible? Despite Poe’s current hatred for dreams, it could not be healthy to have none whatsoever. Dreams were how the mind made sense of the world; how it explored ideas and made connections in a risk- and logic-free environment. What could it do to a person to live without?

“You were in it.”

The way Finn’s gaze flickered to Poe’s bruised temple made Poe snort. “Might this nightmare have included a mad patient going on a rampage against the entire medbay?”

Finn looked mortified. His gaze went to the floor, and he bit his lip. “Wasn’t a dream?”

“They have a pesky way of doing that,” Poe muttered.

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“Not badly.” Finn’s grasp on Poe’s hand loosened and began to retreat, but Poe sandwiched it between his own. “Hey, look at me.”

He waited for Finn to raise his woozy gaze. His lower lids glistened. Poe admonished himself for not cushioning the truth. If anyone deserved to be treated with utter honesty, it was Finn, but that did not mean he had to be so callous or blunt. Finn had feelings, after all.

“Listen to me,” Poe said once he had Finn’s undivided attention. “The next time you feel yourself waking, I want to you to _breathe_ , in and out, three times, and tell yourself that you are safe. Don’t open your eyes until you have done that a handful of times. Oh, and refrain from wielding metal parts and attacking the medical staff. Promise?”

Finn’s grin almost made it to his eyes. “Promise.” He started to shift, as if to turn onto his side, but stopped abruptly and whimpered. “Hurts.”

“I’m sorry.” And he was. Poe hated seeing people in pain, helpless to put a stop to it. It was part of the reason why he gave the medbay such wide berth.

The lines on Finn’s forehead smoothed and his eyes stayed closed for a time. The machine hooked to him hummed to life, an indication that analgesics had been administered. The tension in Finn’s shoulders eased as his head sank into the pillow.

“Your hair.”

Poe opened his mouth, then shut it, baffled. It wasn’t that a doped Finn was hard to understand. He enunciated quite clearly, all considering. His non sequitors, on the other hand…. “Excuse me?”

“Is that the drugs, too?”

Poe’s hand flew to his head to flatten his stupid curls. Served him right for letting them air-dry. “Probably not. You’re used to seeing me with helmet-head.”

“I’m used to seeing everyone with helmet-head. No one had hair like that.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“Rumor has it that Captain Phasma is blonde.”

“Okay….” Poe had no idea who that was.

“And Kylo Ren is bald.”

Poe flinched. “Pretty sure he has black hair.”

“But… Han and Leia don’t.”

“Must match his heart, then.”

“Oh.” Finn’s eyes went to the chair. He must have recognized that it was out of place, because his gaze softened and returned to Poe. “Have you sat at my bedside a lot?”

“I—” Poe couldn’t find the words to say that he had been too busy, too frazzled. A wave of shame rolled over him. _House arrest_ , he had called it. He wished he had come out of the goodness of his heart rather than strongly implied orders from the general.

Finn seemed to have misread his reaction. “You are a true friend, Poe.”

Poe hung his head in self-disgust. He felt miserable. “I’m mediocre at best.”

He had dragged Finn into this life, not kicking, but certainly screaming, and he damn well had the decency to be his… _person,_ until he found his footing. Leia was right, as usual. He would never admit it out loud.

“But I’ll work on it.”


	3. The Great Escape

_“Is this your secret to survival? Sheer dumb luck?”_

_The deep timber of Kylo’s voice makes Poe’s insides contract. He struggles to rise, but a hand to the sternum plants him back in the sand. The sun beats down with a fiery fury. Sand granules cradle his neck and scald the tender skin._

Poe is confused. He knows where he is and what has happened, but this is not how it had transpired in real life. When he had awakened on Jakku, a vision of stars had spattered the velvety black sky above him. He had not awakened to the hazy sun and sweltering sands of Jakku at dusk.

And he had not awakened to Kylo Ren kneeling beside him.

This is not a memory. It is something else.

“I was not finished with you, Poe.”

“Don’t care.” Poe shoves at the arm, and grunts as the heel of Kylo’s hand anchors him yet again. “I was finished with you.”

Kylo’s head tilts to the side, as if considering. “And you do whatever you want, don’t you? You always have. I envision you were an even feistier youth than I.”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” Poe lets his head thump to the sand, winded from the pressure to his chest.

“Brash, wild, pushing boundaries—you were none of these?”

“Murderous, disloyal, and bantha-shit crazy… ah, yes, it’s like we were twins.”

“You’ve got a tongue on you.” Despite the mask, Poe can _hear_ the smirk in Kylo’s voice. His fingers fist in Poe’s shirt as he leans forward. “I think I should like to bite it the next time we meet.”

Poe lies in the sand, breath caught in his throat at the horrid notion that there could be a next time. What use could Poe possibly serve now that the map is safe with the Resistance? Even a dark lord could not justify wasting such energy and resources on a veritable nobody.

A moment of arrested panic seizes Poe as Kylo shifts, swinging his leg as if to sit astride Poe’s prone form.

Sensing an opening, however small, Poe rolls onto his stomach and scrabbles across the sand. A hand locks onto his ankle and drags him backwards. Hot sand crawls up his trouser leg. Poe manages to kick free and dive out of reach. He gains his feet several paces off and sprints across the dune with every ounce of speed he possesses. His boots get sucked into the soft ground with each step. His heart hammers. He imagines he is an N-1 starfighter — small and unassuming, but with the aerodynamics of the wind itself. His lungs feel liable to burst.

A body tackles into him from behind. It strikes with the force of a charging reek. Their impact to the sand sends a cloud of yellow dust into the sweltering air.

Poe’s eyes burn as he fights the arms wrapped around his torso. _Dryness_ coats his throat. Granules scratch at his corneas. He manages to twist onto his back and swing his fist with all of his might. It sinks into Kylo’s gut. Somehow in the fray, gloved hands find Poe’s wrists and wrest them over his head. Kylo settles onto Poe’s pelvis. No manner of kicking will dislodge him.

Poe gasps for air.

“Did that make you feel better?”

“There will be no next time.” Poe puts every ounce of vehemence he possesses behind that statement.

“How naive you are.” Kylo’s grip tightens. “Hide all you want. I will find you.”

“Has nothing changed?”

A bemused silence meets his question. Kylo’s head tilts in silent inquiry.

“I became your captive in a time when you had few leads. I get it. I was a Resistance fighter in your clutches — what a fun toy.” Poe bucks against Kylo’s iron hold. “But now? Starkiller is destroyed. Rey has found Luke Skywalker. You are injured, or so I hear. Have your priorities not shifted? Have you no new enemies to pursue? You’ve said it yourself: I have not a stitch of Force sensitivity in me. I’m a mere _civilian_ relegated to stand in the shadow of the greats.”

“Who’s to say I’m not going after them?”

“Yet you waste time taunting me.”

“The greatest pilot in the Resistance sells himself short.”

“Is that it? You want to harness my piloting skills? I won’t fly for you.”

“Shame… you are magic in the air. But I never imagined you would.”

“Not even using mind tricks?”

“Those only work on the weak-minded. You, mere _civilian,_ have no such affliction.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, Commander.” Lemma ducked her head. “If I prescribe you sedatives, I would have to notify the general.”

The rest of her sentence hung in the air, unsaid: _such a notification would extend your grounding._

Poe tipped his head back and swallowed a shaky sigh. He felt like a fool. It had taken an hour of staring at the ceiling, drilling metaphorical holes into it while telling himself to fix his problems on his own, and another ten minutes of pacing outside the medbay to admit defeat. This was defeat.

The nightmares were getting worse. Stranger. No longer memories, not even dreams. They straddled the line between reality and something far more ominous. He was going insane.

The bags under his eyes — the ones Leia wanted erased — had grown so dark that even Snap, the definition of oblivious, had started to notice. Poe could grow a mustache down to his jawline before Snap spotted any change to his face. He had commented on the bags. Twice.

Light spilled out of the back hallway and caught Poe’s gaze. There was only one patient in that stretch of the medbay. _Finn._

Poe had not returned since that first visit. If asked, he would say he had been too busy passing his duties onto the rest of his squadron. In reality, Leia’s request still rankled and made him want to avoid the medbay altogether. She had no right asking him to spy on one of their own, especially one to whom he owed a life debt, nor take away his wings because he had refused.

Except that he was beginning to suspect that his refusal to watch Finn had nothing to do with his grounding. When he had informed his squadron of the situation, no one had questioned it. The answer had been written in their eyes.

“Commander?”

Poe thought of the soft smile on Finn’s doped face, his words of gratitude. He thought of flying.

“Never mind,” he murmured.

Whatever Poe had expected to find when he rounded the corner, it was not Finn standing in the middle of the room, clothed only in a threadbare hospital gown. Considering what had transpired mere days ago, the man could bounce back like a crushed roach.

Intrigued, Poe lingered in the doorway.

There was a forlorn set to Finn’s face. He looked around the room as if searching for something.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on bed rest?”

Finn whirled around, obviously expecting a scolding medic if his wince were anything to go by. A relieved smile crossed his face when he spotted Poe. “Aren’t _you_ supposed to be asleep? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” A shudder raked through Poe’s system. Bit of an understatement. “What’s your excuse?”

“This is my great escape.” Finn’s arms made a sweeping gesture, as if to say, _‘can’t you tell?’_

“You got far.”

“I’ve nothing to wear.” Finn’s gaze darted to Poe’s current jacket, this one navy with red striping along one sleeve. “I think they threw away my — your — the jacket. Given the state of my back, I’m sure it was sliced in half and covered in gore, anyway.”

 _“Your_ jacket,” Poe corrected, moving into the room. Nudging the chair with his toe, he twisted it around. “And I doubt they threw it away. It’s probably in a box with the rest of your belongings.”

“That’s a gruesome thought.”

Poe settled into the cushions. “Not really. Many sew tokens from loved ones into their lapels before heading into battle. It would be insensitive to throw anything out without first checking, no matter the state of the clothing.”

“There wasn’t….” Finn rubbed at the back of his neck. His gazed lingered just left of Poe’s ear. “There wasn’t anything in yours, was there?”

“No. I was in a hurry to depart for Jakku, and it was the lightest color I owned. I would have sweltered in navy.” Poe’s fingers curled around the worn leather of his current jacket. It was not as old as Finn’s, which had belonged to an old friend from his days flying for the New Republic, but a favorite.

Finn’s eyes tracked the movement. “Good choice. I would not have survived Jakku without it.”

Jakku. Poe did not want to think about that blasted place. His memories felt contorted. Tampered with. His brain seemed to want to supply the tussle in the sand. It wanted Kylo Ren there.

Poe tried to focus on the here and now. On Finn… who was still standing in the middle of the room.

“Seriously, though.” Poe peered at Finn’s bare feet. While the medbay was a more reasonable temperature than the rest of the base, Poe remembered the chill under his own. “Should you be standing? The last time you did, there was a lot of blood. You may not remember taking me for a little spin in it.”

Finn shook his head. “I went into bacta for two days. Didn’t you know?”

That made sense. They could not submerge Finn in the tank while in a coma, as recent medical studies had identified possible neurological fallout as a result of the practice. Considering how much Finn had bled out upon his awakening, Dr. Kalonia would have wanted him dipped immediately. His injury needed the big guns.

“You look good for two days,” Poe said, impressed. “The last time I got dipped, it took twenty-four hours to feel slightly human again.” Poe might have vomited in the privacy of his quarters, but no one needed to know that. The bacta tank was something that Poe respected from a great distance.

“Don’t feel bad. Not everyone can have as solid a constitution as me,” Finn said with a cheeky waggle of the eyebrows.

Poe snorted a laugh, surprised by Finn’s sense of humor. He had never heard it.

“I’ve been out for two days. It took me both to get over that rotten feeling.”

Had it really been four days since Poe had visited? By the stars, he was a hypocrite. Not that Finn would have known, what with his time in the bacta and the sluggish hours following. But it was the _principle_ of the thing.

“You all healed?” Poe asked.

“As much as I will ever be. See?” Finn pivoted and parted his hospital robe.

Poe’s eyes bugged out as Finn displayed the entirety of his bare backside. But for the ripples and ridges leading up to a spectacular scar, Finn’s skin was smooth; his thighs powerful and… breathtaking. Literally.

Poe leapt to his feet, choking for air. His cheeks were on _fire._ “Finn!”

“Hmm?” Finn’s eyebrows drew together when he took in Poe’s scandalized expression. “What’s wrong with your face?”

Poe slapped his hands to his cheeks. If they were as red as they felt, he probably looked like a human fruit. His breath roared in his ears. “You have no undergarments?”

“Thus my aborted escape. Do you need to sit down?”

Of all his deliberations, Poe had never considered that a stormtrooper might wear nudity with such comfort. Perhaps because they were always covered, head to toe, Poe assumed they would be modest. Used to hiding their bodies to the point of defining themselves by that physical barrier. Not that he had pondered the notion. Very little about stormtrooper armor invited one to imagine the bodies underneath. He remembered how gobsmacked he had been when Finn had first removed his helmet to reveal a sweat-beaded, human face. It was easy to forget there were real people under all that white. But now, faced — literally — with Finn’s easy nakedness, it made sense. The First Order would need stormtroopers to submit to health checks and fitness assessments without such pesky social constructions as modesty.

“Poe?”

“I’ve… ugh… I’ve got—” _A mission. A meeting. A deplorable lack of maturity._ What a tragedy of a sentence. Poe motioned over his shoulder. “Someone should be able to… is there anything else you need?”

Finn hunched his shoulders, the posture making him look small and uncertain. Poe felt something akin to sorrow at the sight. He chastised himself for his immaturity.

“I’m bored,” Finn confessed. “Is there something… I know it’s a lot to ask… maybe some reading materials? I don’t know. They say I have to stay in the medbay for at least a week. I’ve been staring at the walls for days. There are 64 floor tiles, and 193 knots in the ceiling planks.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

As Poe stood, he felt a light touch at his elbow. Finn’s hand. Poe looked up, mouth opened to ask what was wrong, and found himself ensconced in a full-body embrace. For an uncoordinated moment, Poe’s hands remained aloft, stranded and lost as they lingered in the air on either side of Finn.

“Thanks,” Finn whispered into his shoulder.

“No problem, buddy.” Poe patted his shoulder, trying to infuse the gesture with camaraderie, but his face went molten all over again when his fingers grazed bare skin. The hospital gown may as well not be there.

“Okay.” Poe pulled quickly out of Finn’s arms, all kinds of awkward. He did not know where to put his gaze.

Finn’s fingertips stroked his cheek, and Poe snapped to attention. “Maybe you should see a medic. Your cheeks are really red, Poe.”

“Oh hush,” Poe muttered, waspish. He wore his emotions on his cheeks. That was not news. “I’ll be back.”

* * *

Poe paced the length of the atrium for a good three minutes before spotting someone. By that time, his hair was veritably standing from running his hands through it over and over.

“Can I help you, Commander?”

Dr. Kalonia, the head medic, seemed to perceive Poe’s avoidance of the medbay — and medical care altogether — as a personal insult. Her tone was clipped, as if she had more important engagements. As if the medbay were empty minus a sprained ankle, common cold, and Finn.

“Could you send Finn’s box of belongings to him?”

“His clothes are in tatters.”

“Send some needle and thread.”

Dr. Kalonia looked down her nose at him. “That patient is not cleared for weapons.”

“A needle?” Poe scoffed. “Even if he were so inclined — and he’s _not_ — a needle is hardly going to inflict damage.”

“Say that once you’ve taken one to the eye.”

 _Wow, okay._ Poe was not going to argue over the dangers of needles.

Dr. Kalonia retreated into the supply closet, but stopped when Poe cleared his throat. “Another request?” Her eyes grew narrow, as if daring him to ask for something else inappropriate.

“He’s… just this side of naked.” The heat returned to his face. “And it’s blasted cold down here. Can’t he have some nightclothes?”

Dr. Kalonia offered a non-committal harrumph.

Poe made a hasty exit. In the hall, BB-8 awaited with summons to go to the command center for a debriefing. The Green Squadron had just returned from a supply run to Malastare. It had gone sour.

Poe stuck to the back perimeter of the meeting, arms folded over his chest. It was bad enough to be kept from the stars, but hearing about the sloppy mistakes of others had him silently fuming.

Leia kept casting assessing glances his way. He wondered if she knew that he had not seen Finn in four days. He wondered if she knew why he couldn’t sleep. His hands fidgeted under the scrutiny. He refused to make eye contact.

After the meeting, Jess managed to cajole him into eating lunch with the rest of the squadron. It felt good to listen to their banter and fire a few retorts of his own, but their conversation inevitably drifted to upcoming missions.

Poe excused himself, a sizable portion of his meal still on the plate.

* * *

By the time Poe returned to the medbay with an old datapad, it was well past noon.

Finn lie fast asleep on his stomach, sprawled across the mattress like a great tentacled creature. Someone had given him a set of mismatched nightclothes.

Poe sank into the chair.

Finn’s eyes fluttered at the wretched sound of old cushion springs protesting new weight.

“Looks like you had a _day_.”

“Meetings,” Poe said flatly.

“And they went swimmingly by the looks of your sunny disposition.”

Poe huffed a humorless laugh.

Despite Poe’s cool demeanor, Finn asked several more questions. His spirited tone and obvious curiosity made it impossible to remain taciturn. Poe felt the stress release from his shoulders as he settled in for an evening of easy conversation.

He stayed until dusk, fielding question after question until his voice grew groggy. They discussed the mad chaos of the Resistance’s hasty relocation to Lakemon. Poe asked Finn about Jakku. It still defied logic that Finn had survived the wreck, stumbled across BB-8 and a Force-sensitive scavenger, and flown the Millennium Falcon and Han Solo right to the Resistance’s doorstep. Finn was something else.

When Finn asked after Rey, Poe deflated. No, he didn’t know when she would be back. No, he didn’t know whether she had tried to contact him. Yes, he was sure she _would_ come back. Yes, he was sure she had tried to communicate. No, he wasn’t just saying what Finn wanted to hear. Yes, he was well aware how horrid he was at lying. Yes, he had no shame.

Poe showed Finn how to use the old datapad, so many generations behind First Order technology that Finn couldn’t turn it on, let alone search for reading material.

After a time, Poe noticed a change in Finn’s demeanor. His gaze grew increasingly distant; his eyelids drooped. His weakened body needed rest. For all that Finn seemed on point, he was still convalescing. Poe kept forgetting that.

Poe extracted the datapad from Finn’s limp grasp and set it aside.

Finn was already out, positioned on his stomach as usual, a slight smile lingering on his kind face.

Poe placed a hand on his forehead. “Sleep well.”


	4. The Card Game

_Poe is lying on a hard floor. The cold metal beneath his back saps the warmth from his body. He rises to his elbows and blinks at the unfamiliar command deck stretching before him._

It is a massive chamber, resplendent with high ceilings and shiny black walls. Although he has never graced a bridge of this caliber, it is clearly a Star Destroyer. Its new age equipment suggests a Resurgent-class prototype. The Finalizer.

The bridge is empty, an impossibility on the real thing, as it takes a small village to keep these monstrosities flying.

Poe clamors to his feet and slips into the abandoned crew pit. The navigation panel indicates that the ship is in transit, albeit traveling at an ambling pace. The coordinates are familiar, but Poe cannot remember why. In the past few months of trailing the movements of the First Order, the number sequences have started to blur.

There is a sound outside the access doors. Familiar steps — heavy and purposeful.

Poe dives to his knees and scrambles under one of the consoles. He makes himself as small as possible, knees tucked to his chest, and holds his breath.

The access doors hiss open.

From the corner of his eye, Poe detects movement on the walkway. He refuses to look. His heart hammers. He tilts his head back and counts to ten. When ten doesn’t work, he counts to one-hundred. When that doesn’t work, he gives up.

Kylo stands at the viewport for an extended period of time. His hands bracket the navigation panel as he stares into the stars.

Poe releases his breath slowly.

“Do you think I can’t sense you?” Kylo says to the quiet chamber. “You are a bird, made to soar, whose wings have been ruthlessly clipped. I felt your despair the moment you crossed into this plane.”

Poe does not speak. He squeezes his eyes shut and pretends that Kylo is mad enough to speak to an empty room. Pretends that he can while away his time in this hellish dreamworld under the command panel.

Kylo alights into the crew pit. The durametal floor jolts as he lands, knees bent to absorb the shock, bringing his masked face into perfect alignment with Poe’s. Kylo does not move, says nothing, just stares. At least, Poe thinks Kylo is staring. The mask is unsettling. Kylo could be frowning, smiling, or as straight-faced as the mask itself. Poe does not know which he prefers.

“Why did she ground you?”

Poe refuses to respond. His arms tighten around his legs.

“Is it because you cannot sleep?”

Poe’s jaw twitches as Kylo’s words strike him. There are answers in that question. Is this the intent behind Kylo’s nightly visits? Incapacitating the Resistance’s greatest pilot? Undermining his ability to concentrate? Are his threats all empty, meant solely to terrorize him?

Either way, it is a successful plan.

“Have you become a liability?”

_Yes._

“Maybe it’s strategic,” Poe says, finally. He wants to unsettle Kylo the way he has him, but doesn’t know how. Kylo acts like a cat playing with its dying prey; everything amuses him. He knows who holds the power.

Poe shifts, antsy under a scrutiny that he cannot see but feels as sure as the durasteel beneath his boots.

Kylo stands and commands Poe to follow with a single: “Come.”

Poe has every intention of staying put.

Emitting an impatient growl, Kylo hauls him to his feet. Poe’s shoulder is thrust into an uncomfortable angle as he is dragged out of the pit.

Poe’s eyes widen as they approach the viewport. They have arrived at their destination. The Finalizer idles, perched on the outskirts of the Hosnian system. Hosnian Prime is visible in the distance, its grand cityscape winding about the planet’s surface like glowing veins. Republic City shines like a beacon.

“Did you watch, the first time?”

“No,” Poe says, voice tight. “And I won’t watch it, now.”

“That’s what I like about you, Poe. Such confidence. You are powerless to fight me, yet you still believe you can. This resilience has no business in my presence.”

“You are not invincible.”

“Maybe.” Kylo faces the stars. Poe almost wishes he could see his face. There is something circumspect about his tone. Almost philosophical. “But not against you.”

A red beam blazes into view, filling the command deck with piercing crimson. Poe’s heart surges into his throat. He cannot watch. He whips around, but Kylo is there. He takes hold of Poe’s upper arms and forces him to face the viewport, his chest a wall caging him in place.

“No,” Poe gasps, and turns his head, eyes pressed shut.

A hand to the hair forces his head around, clasp harsh enough to rend locks from the scalp. The roots burn.

Poe scrabbles at Kylo’s arm.

“Watch it.”

The beam is nearing. Poe feels the emotions of that day all over again. His squadron had been in the stars enroute to Takodana. The red had bewildered them; intrigued them. In their ignorance, they had commented on its beauty. They had not known, could not have known. The explosions had sent reverberations across the galaxy, rocking their ships and shorting out their command panels. Duska had rattled, uncontrollable for several moments, as waves struck her side. He had known it was the demise of the New Republic. He had felt it in his bones.

The first planet splinters into a ball of light.

“I could hear them dying,” Kylo says. “Their cries filled my mind.”

The second one follows, this one larger. The Finalizer sways as sonic waves roil against its hull, its massive form groaning and creaking under the stress.

Poe quivers with emotion. “You’re a monster.” His voice is biting, almost unrecognizable. “Those people did nothing to you.”

The third planet implodes, and Poe cannot watch any longer. He kicks off of the panel as hard as he can. It barely unbalances Kylo, but he has to shift to regain his footing. It’s enough. Poe jumps into action. He squirms and kicks and grabs at everything he can reach. His method is faulty, but then Poe’s back digs into something solid at Kylo’s hip — his lightsaber!

It is foolish beyond reckoning, but Poe is anything if not desperate. He manages to dig his heel into Kylo’s shin at the same time his fingers close around its cylindrical grip. He chucks the lightsaber as hard as he can in the opposite direction.

As if on cue, Kylo releases him. Poe maneuvers his fall into a roll, coming up several feet away, and sprints across the security foyer, through the access doors, and into the main corridor.

Kylo’s footsteps hammer behind him.

Poe rounds the first corner at top speed. His boots skid on the slippery surface, and he overshoots the turn by several paces. He dashes down the hallway as fast as his legs will move. A second pivot sends him hurtling him down a corridor that looks the same as the first. He is already lost. The walls all look the same.

Poe chokes on his breath as Kylo pounces out of an alcove and crashes into him.

Kylo rams him into the wall, forearm an iron rod against his throat. “Touch my lightsaber again, and I will kill you.” His mask is inches from Poe’s face.

“Go ahead,” Poe wheezes. “Would save me the indignity of having to listen to another pathetic monologue. _I am a creature of darkness,”_ he mimics. _“I love despair.”_

Kylo’s lightsaber springs to life. The distinctive crackle and crimson glow reflecting off of Kylo’s mask — so like the beams that had annihilated the Hosnian system — make the hairs on his nape rise.

Kylo’s mask is as expressionless as ever, but his body betrays his fury. His chest heaves great breaths of air. He captures Poe’s left hand by the wrist and bashes it to the wall.

“I agree,” Kylo snarls. “I talk too much.”

He reels back his lightsaber and swings for Poe’s braced hand… only to stop mere inches from Poe’s palm. And linger. The heat is indescribable. The skin crackles and blisters. Poe struggles to straighten his fingers, fighting the instinct to curl them into a protective fist, as any movement will shear his fingers off. The blade sweeps closer. Too close. It is torture of the worst kind.

Poe chokes on a sob and buries his face in his shoulder. He can smell cooking flesh. His own flesh. His arm shakes, held only in place by Kylo’s grasp. Tears of pain squeeze out the corner of his eyes.

“Please.” It is all he can manage.

“Please, what?”

_“Please.”_

* * *

Poe awoke shaking, hand still smoldering with invisible heat.

A circuit of the tunnels did nothing to erase his nerves, nor a brief walk topside. The latter cooled his feverish skin, but nothing could assuage the racing of his emotions. He missed the nights when he would simply dream about his original captivity. That bizarre kiss. Each successive dream took him someplace different, resulted in mind games that sent him shaking and hyperventilating into wakefulness. Kylo Ren was a cruel bastard.

Eventually, Poe’s legs brought him to the medical bay.

Lemma said nothing as Poe reached her perch, gnawing his lip and mulling over his options. He knew what he wanted to say. He also knew her response. Another, _‘I’m sorry, but it would lengthen your no-fly status.’_ From the look in her eyes and her inability to make eye contact, she was thinking the same.

“Damn it,” he said with feeling, more to himself than her. Poe raked both hands through his hair, letting them rest at the crown of his head as he looked around the medbay helplessly. He felt backed into a corner.

Finn’s hallway caught his eye. The light was on. Again.

Lemma followed the direction of his gaze. “Um. You’re not really supposed to—”

Poe cast a look over his shoulder that said: _‘I dare you to stop me.’_ Lemma’s mouth clamped shut.

Finn was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a deck of sabacc cards fanned across the bedspread.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Poe asked by way of greeting.

“Yes.” Finn’s eyes never left the cards as if he had already known Poe was there. As if he had not jumped and released a somewhat soprano yelp at Poe’s sudden appearance. The corners of his mouth twitched. “All the time. That’s why I’m awake at this ungodly hour.”

Finn was not playing a solitary game, Poe realized as he drew closer, rather he was organizing the cards by suits. It dawned on him as he watched Finn match two Endurance cards that he might not know any games.

Finn looked up, finally, eyes twinkling. “The real question is, do you? By my reckoning, this is your third visit in the middle of the night.”

“I have nightmares.”

He didn’t know why he said it.

Finn’s face softened. He appeared to want to ask, but mercifully returned to the three cards in his hand. Poe wanted to hug him for that. Finn had lived a life of forced honesty, one in which he had relinquished every bit of who he was to superior officers. There were no secrets in the First Order, of that Poe was certain. If anyone could comprehend Poe’s need for privacy, it would be Finn.

“Do you want me to teach you to play?”

Finn’s brow furrowed. “Play what?”

Poe motioned to the cards. “Sabacc. I know standard and a few of the variants.”

Finn’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Really? You would do that?”

Poe found himself mirroring his grin as he toed out of his boots and crawled onto the bed opposite Finn. A light-hearted game of sabacc was just what he needed to get his mind off the lingering burn of his palm.

“Is it hard?”

“The rules are straightforward.” Poe gathered the cards into a single pile. “First, we need to reverse your meticulous sorting.”

Poe’s fingers manipulated the cards into a flashy shuffle that made Finn’s eyebrows shoot up.

“You’re going to vanquish me.”

Poe chuckled and passed the stack over to Finn. “It’s easier than it looks. Here, give me your hands.” Poe showed Finn how to arch his palms and where to place the pads of his fingers. After a few tries, Finn managed a passable imitation.

As Finn practiced, Poe explained the rules, showing him the various face cards as he spotted them in the deck.

“Ready to try a game?”

“I think so?”

Finn _flounced_ him. Poe hadn’t even been going easy on him. They played three more games. Finn beat him soundly each time.

“Woo!” Finn howled, pumping his fist in the air as he won the fourth. _“That_ is how you dominate!” His exuberance reminded Poe of the first TIE fighter Finn had shot down during their escape from the Finalizer. Startled, but joyful. Contagious.

Poe felt himself smile despite his bruised pride. He was a fair sabacc player. Not that one would know it watching Finn conquer him with such ease. It was impossible not to get drawn into Finn’s celebration.

A voice cleared itself. Poe felt his ears go hot and Finn inspected his fingernails as Lemma pointedly shut the door. It was still the middle of the night, and they were shouting as if they were in the mess during the noon hour.

“Are you sure you don’t want to up the ante? Bet for real?”

Poe laughed and shook his head. “Why? So you can rob me blind?”

“You may yet win.”

“Right. When the First Order adopts yellow uniforms.”

By now, Finn’s fingers were a blur on the shuffle. A small part of Poe wondered if Finn were a secret sabacc professional and had planned this humbling conquest all along.

When Finn started to deal again, Poe raised his hands in defeat and offered to teach him a solitary game instead.

Poe reclined at the foot of the bed, propped on an elbow as Finn began to puzzle it out. It was a difficult game, replete with complex rules and odd pairings. Finn’s face pinched in concentration, but his hands were quick and precise as he spotted matches and patterns in the cards.

“You have an eye for strategy, Finn.”

“Hmm?” Finn tilted his head up, frowning. He wore the look of someone awaiting a punchline. “I do?”

“Yes. This is supposed to be a slow game.”

“Am I doing it wrong?”

“No. You’re just a natural. What was your position in the First Order?”

“Not _strategy.”_

“Then they were idiots,” Poe said with feeling.

And not just because Finn seemed to have a keen eye for tactical patterns and logistics. There was something special about him, a lightness that defied definition. He wore light like Leia wore wisdom, like Ackbar wore intuition. How had he managed that? How could someone like Kylo Ren be raised in a household of love and support and morph into a monster who derived pleasure from torture, while Finn, who had never known love or compassion, embodied such easy optimism?

Poe wondered how long Finn had known he was not cut out to be a stormtrooper. Had he always recognized it? Had he bided his time, waiting for years until the right moment — or the right person — to flee? Or had it been a fleeting feeling, never articulated until that fateful night on Jakku? Finn seemed like a thinker, someone who would want a fully fleshed plan. Yet Poe remembered the sudden, frantic nature of his need for a pilot on the Finalizer.

“Do you remember anything from before?”

The moment it came out of his mouth, Poe regretted it. Finn gave him a _look._ Poe did not do cryptic. He was not purposely vague, like some maddening elders amongst the Resistance ranks. He did not want to be insensitive, but if it were tactless to say ‘stormtrooper’ around Finn, it was probably unthinkable to inquire about his life before it. It was a stupid question, and now he was stuck with it.

“Before?” Finn echoed when Poe did not elaborate.

Might as well commit. “Before you were taken by the First Order?”

Finn’s expression reflected how ridiculous he found the question. At least he wasn’t insulted. “They took me as an infant,” he said slowly, as if he thought Poe were simple. At this time of night and considering his bizarre sleeping patterns, perhaps he was.

“I know. It’s just that Leia has memories of her mother dying in childbirth. _Her_ childbirth. Sometimes our minds work in mysterious ways, even when we are too young to know it. I thought maybe… never mind. The general has the Force.”

Finn mulled over Poe’s words, the cards in his hands seemingly forgotten as he tapped his lip with one of them. “I don’t remember anything.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind. I wish I had something exciting to tell you, like I remember my mother cradling me in her arms and telling me not to listen to a word they said, and that’s why I defected.” Finn shrugged, clearly not torn up over lost families and childhoods.

He must have come to terms with it long ago. Poe was in awe of that sobering thought. His mother had died years ago, and he still felt a throbbing pain on birthdays and moments of great celebration or loss. Of course, how could one miss something they’d never had?

“What’s _your_ earliest memory?” Finn asked, a curious set to his gaze.

“Flying. With my mother.” It was likely not a memory, but a story told so often that he had begun to attribute his own sense of recollection to it. He recalled his mother sitting behind him, arms bracketing his small body. His little fingers wrapped around the controls, her elegant hands bracing his elbows so that he did not unwittingly take them into a dive. Her soft voice spoke in his ear; content, affectionate. He remembered that first rush, body heavy as they surged into the air, before that rapturous feeling of weightlessness. “I’ve always known I wanted to be a pilot.”

“Is that why you want to know my earliest memories? To find out who I am meant to be?”

“No. Yes. No.” Finn gave him a perplexed look, and Poe tried again. “I have no idea what the First Order did to you — and despite the wild theories my imagination has cooked up, I don’t _need_ to — but I can’t wrap my head around you. How are you so… _good?_ One does not endure a lifetime of indoctrination and come out smiling and joking. Or do you? Maybe my assumptions are wrong. Maybe they did tuck you into bed with lullabies and kisses, knowing that to ignore the baser human needs for compassion was to create deep-seated complications later in life. That would explain _you,_ but not the nonexistence of other defected stormtroopers.” Poe shook his head, trying to recall where he was going with this. “I guess I was wondering how far back we can trace this sense of goodness — to a kind childhood distantly remembered or mere genetics — if it goes back at all. Unless is was a revelation borne from the atrocities of the stormtrooper program?”

Finn’s jaw hung agape by the time Poe finished. Poe could only imagine what he was thinking. For once, his expression was unreadable.

Tension climbed Poe’s spine as he waited for Finn to respond; to kick him out for bringing up bad memories, for hampering his efforts to put the past behind him.

Finn took an audible breath. “You think I’m good?” The corners of his mouth curved into an awed smile.

Poe placed his hand on Finn’s knee, noting how Finn’s gaze rested on it. “I don’t think it. I know it.”

Finn stewed for a minute. “You’ve thought about this a lot.”

“Welcome to my brain.”

“It’s a little of both,” Finn said, finally. “I never fit the mold, but I thought that was normal. Didn’t everyone grapple with the conflict of balancing personal integrity with the unconscionable demands of their duties? It all came to a head on Jakku. One of my teammates died at my feet. His body was discarded, his bunk replaced by a new trooper the next day. They forbade us from mourning. He died doing his duty, and that was the greatest honor for any stormtrooper. It was not a ‘loss.’ He died a hero… but I watched him die, and there was nothing heroic about it. It was senseless. I always knew, but I didn’t _know_ until that moment. If that makes sense.”

“So… no kisses and lullabies.” It was an understatement, but Poe didn’t know what else to say. He was honored by Finn’s honesty; humbled by the obstacles he had surpassed.

“I don’t even know what a lullaby is.”

“It’s a song. You sing them to little ones to help them fall asleep.”

“Can you sing one?”

“What—right now?”

“It’ll be my first.”

“No pressure, then?”

“I have no other frame of reference.”

Poe tipped his head back and tried to call to mind his favorites. His grandfather had had several in his repertoire. “There’s one… I don’t know if I can remember the words.” He closed his eyes and imagined the haunting melody, dark where most lullabies tended towards light.

_“The sea is a silken tempest  
Blues and silvers, churn and rock  
Let its rhythm bring you rest  
Rise and clash, flash and knock._

_A lone ship sits caught in the squall  
Sway and list, groan and creak  
Your slumber shrouds its harrowing call  
Snap and splinter, disperse and sink.”_

Finn was quiet for a long time, regarding Poe with an intensity that made his cheeks suddenly warm.

“Your voice. It’s—”

“Horrendous. I know. You should have heard my grandfather. He was operatic.”

“I was going to say beautiful.”

Poe blinked at him. “Come again?”

“I’ve never heard anything like it.”

No one had ever complimented his singing before, not that he was prone to breaking into song. Sometimes he crooned little ditties while working on Duska, but after one too many instances of teasing jeers from his squadron, he usually waited until the hanger was vacant to do so.

“Everyone catcalls when I sing. I assumed my voice made ears bleed and windows crack.”

“Hearts, maybe. Not windows.”

Poe’s pride — sad, mangled thing though it was after Finn’s foray into sabacc — thrummed with pleasure, even as he shook his head. “And you would know.”

Finn huffed a sardonic chuckle and raised his handful of cards, as if remembering he was in the middle of a game. “That song is supposed to make children fall asleep?” he mused as he placed two more cards. “No wonder you’re inclined to nightmares.”

Poe spared a jealous thought to the fact that Finn did not dream.

“I used to think it was just a pretty song about a stormy sea. I spent most of my childhood lulled to sleep whenever a storm rolled through.”

“It’s probably for the best that the First Order never sang them. If that’s how the good guys soothe their children, can you imagine what _they_ would have sang?”

“Dismembered limbs and blood and gore, I imagine.”

“At any rate, sleep came easily to us. The sound of hundreds of bodies deep in slumber were our lullabies. The FN Corps was located in the center of the Great Dormitory, so you could hear breathing on all sides. It was white noise; creaking bunks and sighs. Quite peaceful. Almost comforting. We were trained to rely on our team, to gain strength from that bond. At no time was that sense of togetherness clearer than at night. We became one in sleep.”

At that moment, Poe realized the full extent of his ignorance. Finn’s life had been no party, but he was _human._ He was not a clone, designed to desire only orders and obedience. If there was anything Poe had learned in his lifetime, humans always found ways to attribute meaning to life. Even in the bleak First Order, Finn had cultivated a sense of belonging amongst his compatriots.

“Do you have troubles sleeping here?” Poe asked.

Finn scowled. “This injury has my body fatigued. I sleep all the damn time.”

“With your luck, you’ll have a roommate that snores like Duska’s exhaust nozzle. You’ll never have peace and quiet.”

“Duska?”

“My X-wing.”

Finn snorted. “You named your fighter?”

“What? You thought Han Solo was the only one?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever considered. What does it mean?”

“It’s Bocce. The best translation I’ve found is ‘soul’ or ‘spirit.’”

“That’s fitting.” Finn eyed the remaining cards, a line forming between his eyebrows. “Maybe you can take me up sometime?”

“That would be… a tight fit.”

The mental image of Finn trying to cram himself onto Poe’s lap in Duska’s single seat made Poe’s eyes go round. He had forgotten that Finn’s only experience with fighter-class ships had been a TIE fighter. If Finn weren’t so deep into his cards, he probably would have questioned Poe’s flushing cheeks again. Had they trained blushing out of stormtroopers? If so, Poe would willingly join the First Order for lessons.

“Ah!” Finn exclaimed, making Poe start. He merged two piles, topped it with another card from his stack, and set the Demise card across the Star. An unusual pattern. A brilliant move.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

“What—now?” Finn looked down at his cards, then back up, as if to say, _‘but I’ve not finished.’_

Poe stood. The question had slipped out of his mouth, but now he was warming to the idea. Finn needed fresh air. And Poe needed something to do with his hands… or his legs. One of his sets of limbs. His skin itched with the need to move.

“I’ll take you on a tour. We’ll get you a power chair.”

“They won’t release me. They get mad when I walk from my bed to the fresher without help. They sometimes follow me _in,_ Poe.”

Poe felt mildly mortified on Finn’s behalf.

“Lemma is running the front desk. I’m her superior ranking officer. She would have to wake the sleeping rancor to stop me.”

Before Finn could open his mouth to spout another excuse, Poe was out the door and begging Lemma to let him sneak Finn on a joy ride. He flashed his most dashing smile, ran a hand through his curls, and promised to let no harm come to her charge.

When he returned with the power chair and a blanket, Finn gave up his pretense. His eyes sparked with adventure.

* * *

Poe took Finn everywhere that was open in the ugly hours of the morning, which was little. After four locked doors, they tried the mess. It was always available for midnight visits. Its main doors were propped open, lights set to dim. Two pilots from the Red Squadron sat comatose over their trays of breakfast, scheduled to depart within the hour.

Mela noticed Poe first and elbowed the other, Vate, whose nose was nearly swimming in his porridge. “Commander!”

Vate leapt to attention, brandishing his spoon in sudden alertness, before he spotted them. “Commander,” he mumbled, clearly wishing the ground would swallow him.

“Finn, these are two of my pilots: Mela and Vate. Mela and Vate, this is my Finn. I mean my—this is…” The two pilots goggled at him, and Poe mirrored their gaping mouths, not sure what had just happened, but wondering if Vate’s imaginary sinkhole had room for two.

“I’m Finn.” Finn extended his hand, casting a bewildered look over his shoulder at Poe.

Poe stepped back, hand to his forehead as he pondered his brain’s malfunction, and listened passively as the three danced around introductions. The pilots seemed intrigued, if uneasy around the ex-stormtrooper. After a few minutes of chatter, however, Finn seemed to have won them over with his easy smile.

“We’ll let you get back to your breakfast,” Poe said. “Good luck on your mission.”

“Thank you, Commander. We look forward to your return.”

Finn’s head shot up. “Return? From where? Are you going somewhere?”

“It’s nothing. Let’s go.” Poe made it to the doorway before Finn caught up.

“You have a mission, don’t you?” Finn asked as they reached the end of the hallway. “Are you going after Kylo Ren?”

“What—no!” Poe hugged his arms to his chest. “I’m not scheduled for any missions.”

Finn said nothing, but his gaze could drill holes into the side of Poe’s face.

When they arrived at the hangar, they found BB-8 idling beside Duska. Probably soothing her, Poe thought. If droids or machines had feelings — Poe was ambivalent on the controversial topic — she was as agonized over his grounding as he was.

BB-8 sprang to life as Poe settled his hand on Duska’s black hull, reverent fingers tracing her red stripe.

“What did BB-8 just say?” Finn asked.

BB-8 had told Poe off for being out of bed. _Duska was collecting dust, and it was his fault._

“He said good morning.”

BB-8 made a scandalized sound and inquired how long Poe had been experiencing hallucinations. There was much irony in that statement.

“He doesn’t seem to agree with your translation.”

BB-8 gave a gratified chirp.

Poe gritted his teeth. “Oh, switch off, Roly-Poly.”

BB-8 fired a staccato of slurs at him.

Finn laughed. “It’s good to know I’m not the only one he does that to.”

“They say droids begin to resemble their masters over time. I’ve created a monster.”

“By that logic, you are the template for one.”

Poe flicked Finn in the ear. “Do you want me to abandon you out here? Unless you remember how to traverse the tunnels back to the medbay, you’re going to be in for a rude awakening when those hangar doors open in an hour. I am not kidding about the wind.”

Finn kicked him in the shin. “I’ll sic Dr. Kalonia on you.”

Poe’s face must have reflected his horror, because even BB-8 chortled.

Finn gestured to a burn mark on Duska’s side and queried whether it had come from Takodana, which led to Poe regaling him with a tale about getting caught in the crosshairs of a ticked off pirate on a simple recon mission in the Peria System a few months back.

Finn gained his feet, hand splayed across the ugly mark.

As he watched, Poe felt a heaviness overcome him. He was _tired._

“She’s absolutely stunning.” There was quiet awe in Finn’s voice. “I remember seeing her in the sky at Takodana. She was grace personified. _You_ were grace personified. I—”

Poe’s hand rose to hide his yawn, but Finn’s look stopped him. He smiled, sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Not that I don’t enjoy your company,” Finn said in a frank voice, “but don’t you need sleep?”

“Of course, I need sleep.”

“I don’t think you’ll get it, here.”

“It’s even less likely in my room.”

“But… doesn’t that make you a liability? No offense, because your reputation as the darling of the Resistance is well-earned, but I know what it is like to function sleep-deprived. Captain Phasma used to wake us at odd hours and thrust us into life or death situations. Simulations, though we never knew until afterwards. Our bodies wouldn’t move right, and our minds felt stuck in mud. I can only imagine the effect on a pilot.”

Poe chewed on his lower lip and glanced down at his boots, as if the scuffed toes and flyaway laces were the most scintillating vision he had ever beheld.

“Poe?”

“The general grounded me.”

“She—what? She grounded _you?_ For how long?”

“Until I figure out how to sleep through the night.”

“I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“It’s not—” The lie stalled on his lips. Poe closed his mouth.

The lines around Finn’s eyes grew tight. He looked back at Duska. “That’s what those pilots meant by you ‘coming back.’ How long has it been?”

“Nine days.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was like operating without a limb, living as a shadow. Desperation encompassed him each time he watched his own squadron slip into the stars without him.

“If it’s worth anything: you belong in the sky.” Finn looked back to Duska. “Both of you.”

Poe felt a flutter in his stomach. His legs moved without his conscious consent, and he closed the distance into a hug. “Thanks, Buddy,” he murmured into his shoulder.

Finn’s arms met at the small of his back, nodding, but silent.


	5. The Toss Pile

_Poe’s gaze settles on the rickety rafters of the transport hangar on Jakku, knowing even as he comes to full awareness that Kylo Ren is here, looking for him._

In reality, he had stumbled into the crumbling outpost; dehydrated, exhausted, and half-alive. His legs had moved as if weights were attached, and his burned skin felt liable to split. He had collapsed inside the threshold.

Now, however, he is alert.

Kylo is pacing the halls, footsteps cracking like distant thunder against the hollow floorboards, designed to let sand through. He is calling out to Poe, jeering, but Poe cannot discern his words.

Poe hides in alcoves, ducks in narrow passageways, and weaves between parked ships, always a step ahead.

Kylo is more a nebulous voice than a physical presence. 

At one point, Poe hears him say: _‘we are connected, you and I’_ and _‘you may be half a galaxy away, but I can still taste your despair,’_ but it feels like nothing. More a whisper riding the air currents of the hangar than an actual voice.

He never finds Poe.

* * *

Poe awoke just before noon feeling as if he had slept for a week. He stared gobsmacked at his chronometer. Seven hours had passed since he’d dropped Finn off in the medbay and trudged to bed. Seven full, uninterrupted hours.

It was a miracle.

When Poe arrived in the mess to eat, he was disheartened to discover his usual table vacant, his squadron dispersed on various missions. They had been good-humored about picking up his duties, but after nearly two weeks shouldering his substantial schedule, that generosity had grown sour. He hoped Leia was ready for the fallout. Having the commander of the Resistance’s Starfighter Corps out of commission put a substantial strain on the rest.

Poe spotted the captain of the tactical team eating by herself, buried in her datapad. Changing course, he thumped his tray across from her and slid onto the bench.

“Zaia,” he greeted.

She looked up, lips pursed and visibly gearing to chastise the interloper for disturbing her. When she saw Poe, however, her eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead. They were all Resistance… but they weren’t one big family. Strategists did not mingle with flyboys. Or perhaps it _was_ like a family. Flyboys were the crazy cousin that normal family members regretted having to see during holidays.

“Commander. To what do I owe the honor?”

“I have a friend.”

“A… friend,” she echoed, drawing it out. It was the same tone the medics used when one was too mortified to admit to an embarrassing problem and cooked up an imaginary friend to save face.

“He’s surprisingly good at sabacc.”

She contemplated him as if he had sprouted horns. There was some irony to that, considering that she was a Zabrak. “…Okay.”

“I’m serious. He bested me four times in a row.”

“Right.”

Poe huffed a laugh at her skeptical expression, casting his most rakish smile at her. It worked with Lemma. Given Zaia’s frown, however, it might have had the opposite effect on her. “Let me start over. I think my friend would be of interest to your team. He has a mind for strategy.”

“Have you given any thought as to whether your abilities at sabacc are a viable gauge of one’s skill in strategy?”

Ouch.

“Well, no. I won’t claim to be a professional card-player, but I’ve a fare number of wins under my belt. That’s how I won this chronometer.” He raised his wrist, but Zaia’s gaze didn’t flicker down once.

“Does this friend have a name, or are you being deliberately vague?”

“Finn.”

“Finn… what, the _stormtrooper?”_

“No! Well, yes.” The title made Poe uncomfortable. Finn was not a stormtrooper anymore. It was debatable whether he had ever been one. “He’s Resistance.”

“Semantics.”

Zaia put him on edge. Her gaze was cutting, as if she could read his thoughts. To his knowledge, she had no proclivity for the Force, but she did not need it to cut him wide open. He shifted in his seat, fighting the urge to fidget.

“All I’m saying is…” He did not know what he was saying. He had intended to request card games to challenge Finn, but now it was starting to sound like a job recommendation. Well, why not? “If you are looking to build your team, he’s a good candidate.”

“I’ll consider that.”

It was her gentle way of saying he was dismissed. Poe gathered his tray and went to finish his meal alone.

He felt like a fool, but he was beginning to acclimate to the increasingly frequent notion that he was not half as debonair as he thought. This week was all kinds of humbling.

* * *

Poe continued to frequent Finn’s room every night, even as Finn’s sleep schedule started to normalize. He was often asleep when Poe arrived.

Settled in his chair, Poe would explore whatever articles Finn had accessed on his datapad that day. Finn was a voracious reader, with no clear inclination towards a particular genre. Anything was game: from engineering, science, and economics, to cultural doctrine and grammar wars. It would seem that he read anything and everything he stumbled across.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Finn would say when he awoke to Poe scowling at the datapad, trying to wrap his brain around bizarre religious rites or complex mathematical theories. “If the line between your eyebrows got any deeper, you’d resemble a dolanthir,” he would say when he caught Poe twisting the datapad around, trying to figure out the best orientation to inspect an anthology of creatures. He always had a memorable greeting.

Some nights, they ate food smuggled from the mess and chatted about their days.

Apparently, Dr. Kalonia was smitten with Finn, which was all kinds of unfair as far as Poe was concerned. Granted, Poe was not the best patient in the galaxy, but Finn had his obstinate moments. Perhaps she knew about their nightly joyrides around the base. Lemma liked Poe well enough, but even that had become eclipsed by her blatant fondness for Finn. Finn had invited her to play cards on multiple occasions. She was not as good as either of them, but Finn sometimes let her win, and kicked Poe if he tried to swoop in with a strong hand, because that was who he was.

One night, Finn confessed that he had never seen a holovid. Amazed, Poe had raided his squadron’s personal collections and arrived the next night with enough vids to last a lifetime. They spent the next few nights reclining on Finn’s bed, side-by-side, sampling genres. Like his reading materials, Finn chose no favorites. He laughed uproariously at the comedies, his entire body shaking beside Poe’s, and clung to Poe’s arm during the thrillers. Poe dozed during the dramas, sometimes awakening with his head on Finn’s shoulder and Finn sniffling over someone’s death. In many ways, Finn was a big softy. In others, he was so much more.

Each night, Poe dove into bed, bone-tired, and slept better than he had in ages. His dreams were distant, though they did not disappear altogether. Sometimes he was back on the Finalizer, other times, weaving through the trees of Takodana. The most recent had been D’Qar. Poe had crouched at the base of a foothill, keeping to its trough as Kylo Ren beckoned from the crest of a distant hill. Something was keeping Kylo at bay. Poe could hear the frustration in his calls, the anger boiling over, because Poe Dameron was a _civilian._ He should not be able to evade one trained in the ways of the Force.

While still tense when he awoke, Poe could feel the change in his body. He was revitalized. Clear-headed. The bags under his eyes lingered, but no longer dominated his face. It was only a matter of time before Leia let him back into the cockpit. He could feel it.

* * *

Poe waved at Lemma as he passed. She gave him a sunny thumbs-up.

Finn sat cross-legged on his bed with the datapad balanced on one knee. The old thing had been on its last leg before. Now, each additional day was a small miracle. Finn used it non-stop.

BB-8 was there. So, _this_ was where he kept disappearing to?

“What was that?” Finn asked like a person who had already asked the question and was frustrated by his own incomprehension and need to repeat it.

BB-8 praised Finn’s attempts to understand him, but opined that Finn’s brains might not be big enough to grasp his sage words.

“You… think my brains are big?”

BB-8 beeped in the negative.

“No?” Finn’s face scrunched up. He inspected the datapad closer. “What—hey!”

Poe’s laugh gave him away. “BB-8, stop harassing Finn.” His fingers brushed BB-8’s casing as he passed. BB-8 jittered in place, bowing his dome into the caress.

Poe craned his head to inspect the datapad, reading it upside-down. _“How to Understand Your BB-Unit._ BB-8 is yours, now? First my jacket, now this? And you, traitor?” he said, looking at BB-8. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Finn grinned at him, long attuned to Poe’s sense of humor and unconcerned by the accusation of theft. “Just taking a break from the Histories.”

“The Histories? Light reading for the middle of the night. How to learn binary and the History of the Galaxy.”

“I’m becoming increasingly aware of how much I don’t know.”

“So… ignorance is not bliss?”

“It might be. The more I learn, the more my chest feels…” Finn’s hand rose to clutch at his nightshirt. “Heavy.”

Poe perched on the edge of Finn’s bed. Finn scooted to make room. “Be careful with the Histories.”

“What? Why?” Finn gathered the datapad closer, as if concerned Poe would take it away, relegating him to the darkness.

“Initiative 13.”

“But Initiative 13 was ratified to protect the histories of the galaxy. If not for their efforts, we would have lost….” A sort of resignation crossed Finn’s face, even as he said it. “It wasn’t ratified to protect the histories, was it?”

Poe shook his head.

To the average citizen of the Empire, Initiative 13 had been a groundbreaking, if surprisingly liberal move. The ministry had promised to collect, catalog, and preserve the histories of the universe in the greatest archive of all time. The empire had always presented their actions in sweeping superlatives.

“Initiative 13 had one prerogative: censorship. Rewrite history through omission. Think about it. Why do we know so little about the Jedi? They kept peace in the galaxy for _thousands_ of years. They kept meticulous records. We should be swimming in their epics.”

“They were wiped out ages ago,” Finn reasoned. “War broke out. Who had time to remember old fairy-tales of mystical powers and swords of light when survival became a daily uncertainty?”

“Ages ago? Try 50 years. The first chapters of the Histories go back 10,000. It’s not a matter of Jedi existing too long ago to remember. Our grandparents were alive when the Old Republic fell. Luke Skywalker trained under two masters of the original Jedi Order.”

Finn’s eyes grew stormy, his stiff posture reminiscent of one who felt swindled out of knowledge yet again. “I didn’t realize.”

“And the mastermind of Initiative 13 rests peacefully in his grave.”

“More manipulation. Everything about those people is manipulation.” He looked ill.

Poe tilted his shoulder and leaned into Finn. That statement spoke worlds beyond Initiative 13. It spoke to a childhood lost. A lifetime of deception. A mind torn between paths. A life without love. If anyone had a right to be angry, it was Finn. Finn, who had a smile to sway even the hardest of beings, whose compassion encompassed one like a warm blanket. Finn, who waited for Poe each night with a ready wit and twinkling eyes, thirsting for companionship, but never asking for more time than Poe had to give.

“What else don’t we know?” Finn spat. “What else got deleted? What if there exist powers greater than the Force? Worlds that thrived in the past? A… city stretching between its planet and moons. Unimaginable creatures. Universal peace.”

“We cannot know.”

Finn shoved the datapad away as if disgusted by its physical presence. “But I want to know!”

A soft feeling filled Poe. “That is why we fight.”

Finn said nothing for a long time. He stared at his hands, entwined in his lap, visibly mulling over the atrocity of an unknown past lost; of lies and indoctrination.

Poe stood. “Come on. I’ve got something that will make you smile.”

“Doubt it,” Finn muttered.

Poe rolled up his sleeve and produced his forearm for Finn. Finn looked unimpressed at the code etched in blue ink.

“It’s the override code for room 210.”

Finn managed to convey _‘you’re an idiot—you know I don’t know what that means’_ without moving a muscle in his face. It was an art.

“You’re getting out in a few days, Finn. We’re raiding the toss pile.”

They had attempted to break in during past tours of the base. By ‘break in,’ Poe had hit the release key once, twice, really hard a third time, half-heartedly kicked the door, then gave up.

Finn needed a wardrobe. He already had plenty of obstacles to tackle when he finally stepped into the light of… the tunnels upon his release _without_ looking like a homeless sentient. For one, he would need a new jacket. It sounded like Finn’s box of belongings had been delivered, but his old jacket had been unsalvageable.

“Be still my heart,” Finn said, deadpan. “You know how to throw a celebration, Poe. Congratulations on getting released from the medbay, we’re going _dumpster-diving.”_

“Shut up,” Poe laughed, swatting at Finn.

In one swift motion, Finn caught Poe’s swinging wrist, whipped him around, and pinned him flat on his back against the mattress. Poe stared at the ceiling for a bewildered moment, not sure how he got there. His heart pounded… and not with fright.

Finn’s face appeared in his line of sight, eyebrows quirked. “As much as I’m intrigued by the prospect of this mythical goldmine of discarded clothing, there had better be some sweets in the equation, or I’m not going.”

Poe huffed a breathless laugh. It was amazing how Finn could tap into both trained killer and 6-year-old child in one sentence. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Finn’s grip became the whisper of a caress as he clasped Poe’s hand to hoist him back up.

Poe swallowed audibly. “I’ll go warn Lemma that I’m breaking you out again.” Straightening his jacket, mostly to give his hands something to do, Poe headed for the door.

“Iwasgoingtotheleavefortheouterrim.”

Poe paused with his palm on the doorframe. “What?”

Finn’s eyes were riveted on Poe, but hooded, as if not sure he should have said it, and even less certain he should repeat it. “I was going to leave. When I was better. Find work in the outer rim, where the First Order could not find me. The Macetri system, maybe.”

Poe’s heart sank at the admission. The notion that Finn might have plans outside of fighting for the Resistance had never dawned on him. Not that Finn had a commitment to the Resistance… but Poe’s life had expanded to fit him. He would drown in the void left behind. With whom would he engage in fiery debates over droids’ rights? Who would teach Poe humility at cards? Who would bring peace to his sleep?

Poe bit his lip and mulled over Finn’s words. They felt dark and flavored with goodbyes, but something in Finn’s tone told him to let him finish. “And now?”

“You might be the best and worst thing to happen to me since I left.”

“Worse than Rey?”

Finn’s lips pressed together, as if he were trying to keep a straight face. “I almost abandoned her on Takodana.”

Poe snorted, unaware of that. Unthinking, he strode back to Finn’s side and held out his hand. “Welcome to the Resistance, Finn.”

Finn took it, and rolled his eyes when Poe turned it into a dramatic, slow motion hand-shake. “I’m going to regret this.”

“Fighting for a cause? It’s what you’ve been doing all along.”

* * *

“Let’s race,” Poe said as they traversed the empty tunnels in companionable silence.

Finn barely batted an eye at him. “If Dr. Kalonia found out, she’d shave your head in your sleep.”

“I toss and turn too much. She wouldn’t be able to get a hold.”

Which was new. For as long as he could remember, Poe had slept like a rock. He’d awaken most mornings with at least one numb or tingling limb and, on the odd occasion that he fell asleep on his side, an incredibly sore shoulder. He never moved in his sleep. This was common knowledge amongst the Blue Squadron. They always fought over who got to share a sleeping cot with him on long missions, where supplies were short and everyone had to double up if they wanted a blanket. In a band of pilots whose habits ranged from Snap’s tendency to cuddle, Jess’s bizarre ability to carry on conversations in her sleep, and Ello smelling like swamp dirt, Poe was a coveted commodity. He never rolled into anybody else’s space and he could sleep through just about anything. Now, the sound of someone tip-toeing past his door had him on his feet and reaching for his blaster.

“I’m not running, Poe.”

“Come on.” Poe ran in place, then circled Finn a few times, before jogging backwards in front of him, baiting Finn with two faux punches to the air. “You love beating me at things.”

“I’ve been in bed for over a month. Not to mention, I was in a _coma_ for most of it.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t secretly been conditioning your body. I’ve caught you at it. Twice. Race me.”

Finn feigned having no idea what Poe was talking about. “I’m getting released, soon. I’m not about to blow it on a stupid competition.”

“Stupid competition? You are the most competitive person, I know. You have a victory cry.”

“I bet you do too. One day, I might even get to hear it.” Fighting words.

“Ah, I see.” Poe slowed his pace, which brought him into Finn’s space, nose-to-nose. “You’re afraid to lose against me. You don’t want to relinquish your winning streak. I won’t lie. The bite of defeat hurts. I look forward to seeing your face when it happens.”

“Poe.”

“Finn?”

“You dropped your comlink.”

“I did?” As Poe stooped to check the floor, he realized his error.

Finn was already halfway down the corridor.

“That’s cheating!”

“You never laid down any rules!” Finn threw over his shoulder.

“You fight dirty!” Poe gave chase, amazed that Finn had gained such a lead. He had _legs._

Poe let loose a string of invectives when Finn glided to a neat halt in front of room 210 several paces ahead of him. Poe’s heels dug into the ground, but his pace was too fast, his momentum too strong. His boots skidded on the loose earth.

“Watch out!”

Finn turned just in time to receive the brunt of their collision. In an instinctive move, practically muscle memory, Poe hauled Finn to his chest and maneuvered them into a familiar fall. Just as before, Finn landed on him with a force that drove the breath from Poe’s lungs. The deja vu of it made his head spin.

Finn stared down at him, panting. “The fuck was that, Poe?!”

“Sorry,” Poe gasped. “Lost control.”

Finn rose to his elbows. “I swear to the First Order, if you’ve re-injured my back…”

“I know, I know, I’ll pay.” Poe tried to shift, but Finn’s weight on top of him was solid and his ribs hurt. “I think I’m paying, right now.”

Finn craned a look over his shoulder. After two days in bacta and weeks of healing, Poe doubted his back had torn. Although he had only gotten a fleeting view of the scar ages ago — aghast as he had been by the impromptu display of nakedness — the healed skin had appeared thick and strong. It would take more than a fall cushioned by Poe to invite a bloodbath like before.

When Finn turned back around, the air left Poe for an entirely different reason. Finn was close. Very close. From this vantage, his face appeared as an intriguing compilation of abstracts: the single line bisecting his otherwise flawlessly smooth forehead, the subtle shadow of stubble along his jaw, the fullness of his lips, the voluptuous curve of his cupid’s bow. Poe wanted to explore each one. With his mouth.

If Poe’s stomach was fluttering before, the bird had begotten a gaggle of offspring that bounced off his insides like light in a room of mirrors. He felt the blood in his cheeks rush somewhere south of appropriate.

“Get up, get up!” Poe shoved at Finn’s chest and crab-crawled out from under him, scrabbling for the hem of his shirt to force it over his lap.

With anyone else, Poe’s body language might have betrayed him, but Finn sat back on his heels, agape. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” Two lines joined the one on his forehead.

“I’m—” _Fine. Just a little winded. Hey, you just won the race. Say something!_

_…_

_By the stars, Dameron, open your mouth!_

“We should… and then… I’ll get the—you need clothes.”

If anything, Finn looked more concerned. Poe didn’t blame him, considering what was coming out of his mouth. Eloquence was not his superpower, but he liked to think he had a general grasp of _language._

“Did you hit your head?”

“No.” Although there was certainly something wrong with it. Finn was his _friend._

Poe keyed the code, intensely aware of Finn’s penetrating gaze behind him.

Finn stopped in his tracks just inside the door. “That’s… a big pile,” he said, king of understatements. “How will we ever find anything?”

“With perseverance.” Poe snagged the sleeve of a red jacket sticking out of the toppling pile. It was petite and sized for a female’s angular stature.

Finn watched him fish out a handful of items and toss them aside before approaching himself. While Poe was purposeful, used to this process and on a mission, Finn was strangely reserved. Out of the corner of his eye, Poe watched him. Finn surveyed each item with visible reverence, fingers brushing the fabrics as if each were soft as suede, though he folded and returned the vast majority to the pile.

Poe stood arrested as Finn quietly considered a tunic. His mind drifted to the incident — seconds from becoming a debacle — in the hallway. Ever since Finn’s medbay hug, stripped bare in more ways than one, Poe’s libido had apparently decided to march to the beat of its own drum. What was that about? The smallest touches, whether to shoulder, knee, or hand, sent tingles skittering down his spine or flames crawling up to his cheeks. When Finn did something suggestive, no matter how unintentional, like pinning Poe to the bed or falling atop him just now, hips nestled in the cradle of Poe’s legs in a smoldering mimicry of something else… the burn flared into a fiery blaze. A bonfire stoked out of control.

_He’s your friend. Your emotionally and physically vulnerable friend. Your friend who trusts you not to take advantage of him. (And possibly holds a powerful torch for someone else.)_

As if that were not the worst part, Poe had no idea whether Finn was aware of… _anything._ He had never done or said anything to indicate that he knew about sex. He bore no compunctions against near-naked hugs, no modesty about nudity or touch.

It was baffling.

The First Order could not have ignored sex. Refusing to address a youth’s growing sexual drive and the tangled web of complications that came with sexual relations and unwanted pregnancies would create immense liability. It was too risky. It was human nature. On the other hand, there was great dissonance in the notion that First Order curriculum might have tackled the birds and the bees, replete with making good decisions or practicing abstinence.

Certain orders of beings lived lives of celibacy. It was possible to live without sex through sheer force of will. But that implied that such a strength of will to avoid it existed. Furthermore, stormtroopers were too numerous for sheer willpower to hold steady across thousands. Statistically speaking, there was too much room for error.

Could they have trained away sexual drive as they had with dreams? It felt absurd to think it. But if they had managed the latter, why not the former?

Which left biological alteration, either through sterility injections or physical castration. Certain cultures sterilized slave populations to stave the risk of illegitimate bastards resulting from relations between master and slave. But the long-term effect on the body, especially when sexual hormones were removed too young, were well-known and sundry. Joints did not form properly; limbs grew disproportionately. Muscle formation became stunted. Aggressive outbursts were common. Unless they had managed to design a version that did not create an army of physically and emotionally unstable beings, that did not seem likely.

Which brought Poe nowhere.

Except to the most obvious answer: ask Finn. Finn was open about his past. No matter what question Poe posed, he responded with honest, if laconic answers. It was unclear whether relating his experiences was difficult. He used a frank tone and shrugged his shoulders a lot, as if it did not matter to him. Growing up in the First Order was not a horror, but a fact of life. He had known no other way. There were horrific moments. Finn did not sugar-coat the lessons on life and death, enemy versus ally. But also surprisingly light ones. The food was better, apparently, except for the lack of dessert. His memory of his squadron was fond. The average day of a stormtrooper-in-training was varietal and challenging; how Finn thrived. Poe could picture Finn delighting in scenarios and simulations that required unorthodox solutions. Finn’s mind was made for unraveling puzzles.

Poe could not fathom how to breach the topic. Each time he considered it, cowardice usurped his power of speech. Usually, such conversations sparked from small comments made by Finn. Simpering over a smuggled sweet, for example, and wondering why the First Order never allowed them this simple pleasure. Intrigued, Poe would jump on the topic. His curiosity knew no boundaries, especially since Finn had erected none to keep such questions at bay.

But sex had never come up, and Poe couldn’t figure out how to do it authentically.

“Poe?”

Poe startled hard, accidentally flinging the two shirts in his hands back onto the pile.

Finn stood several feet away, regarding him with raised eyebrows. “You’ve been deciding between those two for 5 minutes. You okay?”

Poe bit his lip and scooped up the discarded shirts. At least he thought these were the shirts. “My mind wandered.”

“It’s good to brush off the cobwebs from time to time.”

Poe huffed a laugh. “Go eat a diplo pepper.”

Finn rolled his eyes and chuckled.

After forty minutes, they had amassed a small stack of clothes for Finn to try.

“Why is there so much?” Finn asked, breaking the companionable silence. “Don’t people understand: ‘we are at war, conserve resources?’”

“This _is_ conserving resources. Nothing goes to waste.”

“But where did these clothes come from, if not people having too much?”

Finn did not want to know, of that Poe was certain. He pretended not to hear and held up a particularly egregious sweater. “What do you think about this one?”

Finn’s arms crossed over his chest; the picture of indignation. A dark undershirt swung from his left hand. His expression dared Poe to change the subject. “Poe.” As did his tone.

“They belonged to people who died serving the Resistance.”

Horror crossed Finn’s face. He stared at the shirt in his hand for a disgusted second before chucking it to the floor as if burned. “That’s vile!” He stared at the rest of the pile as if it had personally betrayed him.

“No,” Poe said, picking up the discarded shirt. “It’s not.”

Finn took a step back and refused to take the proffered item. “I won’t wear anything scavenged from a deceased fighter’s wardrobe. That’s depraved.”

Poe tried not to be insulted. Finn simply did not understand.

When Finn wouldn’t touch the undershirt, Poe folded it into a haphazard square.

“Listen, it’s a heroic notion, passing one’s clothing onto their brothers and sisters at arms after death. It’s a connection from past to present. Keeping one’s essence in the fight, contributing to the cause. I would rather someone in the Resistance benefit from my old gear than have it shipped back to the family plot, where it would get tucked into a box and forgotten. I quite like the idea that my softest nightshirt will keep someone warm on cold nights like tonight. That my boots will give someone the tread needed to grip the pedals of a moody X-wing. That my jacket will give a friend respite from the desert sun and a sense of identity. I would have it give him strength to join the fight and make a difference.”

Poe stepped over the stack between them and gripped Finn’s arms, forced him to look Poe in the eyes. “I was pleased to see you wearing my jacket. There was nowhere I would rather have it than around your shoulders.” Poe held up the shirt and placed it against Finn’s palm. “It’s not depravity. Whoever owned this clothing lives on in you. Honor him.”

Finn clutched the cloth to his chest.


	6. The Fight

_The nightmares are beginning to regress, Poe realizes as he races through the abandoned halls of the old base on D’Qar._

Footsteps echo off the walls. Poe knows those footsteps as well as he knows the sound of his own voice, but they are impossible to read. They could be advancing or retreating. Advancing, most likely.

It had started a few days ago. The first night Finn had spent away from the medbay, now that Poe thinks about it. Stuck in his own quarters, unable to escape to Finn’s company, especially when Finn’s new roommate upheld traditional Trandoshan hospitality — that is to say, Poe is barely allowed to breathe the same air — the dreams have taken this concerning turn.

Kylo Ren is no longer a distant entity, taunting and teasing yet unable to locate him.

Now, he is near. He breathes down Poe’s neck, but every time Poe whirls to fight, he is never there. He is always there.

His laugh rides the wind like a spirit.

_“There you are.”_

Poe runs and runs, but it feels like his legs will never take him far enough.

* * *

Jess and Snap’s call signs flitted across the holomap, lingering in place on the edge of the system before jumping to hyper-speed and disappearing from view.

A flare of jealousy thrummed through Poe. “Where are you headed without me?” he murmured.

He stood in the command room, hands clasped behind his back, and mulled over the picture of a squadron overwhelmed with missions. Commanders and generals passed on either side; gave him wide berth. It was as if his uselessness were contagious.

It was starting to feel like Poe would never grace the skies again. It had been four weeks since he had flown. Four weeks of rattling about the base without purpose. Four weeks of ducking people’s pitying looks. It had helped to spend his nights in Finn’s company, but now even that was gone.

On the day Finn had been released, Poe had escorted him to his quarters, hiding discourteous snickers behind his palm as Finn awkwardly introduced himself to his aged roommate, Atlatl. The Trandoshan had grunted at both of them and left. Obviously, he was just as enthused about the situation as Finn. Trying to be useful, Poe had attempted to help Finn unpack his new wardrobe. Apparently, he folded everything wrong. He got demoted to sitting on Finn’s bed, watching him tuck his precious few belongings away. Next, they had gone to the mess to eat, even cajoled the table into a game of sabacc. Poe pretended he couldn’t see the assessing gazes of various members of the tactical team — and a reluctant Zaia — as Finn won a pile of goods. Afterwords, they had bundled up and gone topside. They spent the afternoon exploring the steppes, leaning into the wind and trying to take flight on its powerful currents. Finn could not stop laughing at Poe’s red nose. As night drew near, Finn had hugged Poe goodnight, thanked him for everything, then shut the door. It felt like the end of an era.

It was the longest night of Poe’s life.

After that, Finn had disappeared in the swarm of activity that was active duty in the Resistance. First, there were the meetings. While Poe had a fair number himself, his were mission-based and typically attended only by pilots and high commanders. Poe was one of the doers. Finn was a thinker. The newest member of the tactical team, Finn was swamped by his own meetings and trainings. He had missed lunch with Poe, that first day, which Poe should have read for the warning it was. Finn was moving on, becoming his own person.

Poe was a token of the past.

Over the next few days, Poe had seen him intermittently. From time to time, he would spot Finn pouring over maps, head to head with top members of the Resistance, and feel a keen sense of pride.

More strongly, however, Poe felt a keen sense of loss. With each day of his new life, Finn drifted further from Poe. The strategists were a close-knit group, not unlike the pilot squadrons. While the pilots were gregarious, strategists tended towards introversion. Few had words for flashy flyboys. Finn waved at Poe when they passed, and occasionally sat with him while he awaited his team in the mess, but the long, lonely nights were a menacing black hole.

At this point, walks were Poe’s only respite. There was something calming about the mundane act of placing one foot ahead of the other, the next to follow, propelled by nothing more than the sheer force of muscle memory. Walks were no replacement for Finn, though they helped. Sort of. Helped because he was not in bed, therefore not asleep and likely to dream. Poe found himself going topside more and more, despite the wind. The icy bite of the night’s howling skies and the beauty of Lakemon’s glowing moons kept his mind on the here and now. It was late in the season, and the third moon would not appear alongside the others for months, but the other two cast a velvety blanket of soft purples and blues upon the land. He appreciated the beauty.

Poe only hoped Leia took note of his progress before it deteriorated back to the state that had grounded him in the first place. There was nothing for him, now, but to fly.

A familiar laugh brought Poe back to the command room. Speak of the devil.

Poe blinked at the bizarre sight of Finn and Leia exiting her office wearing matching grins. It had been days since Poe had properly seen Finn. He looked good. Vibrant. Leia’s arm threaded through his elbow as she leaned in to say something that made Finn giggle. Honest to goodness, _giggle._

Finn unfolded a familiar swath of fabric from his forearm. Poe’s heart surged into his throat as Finn guided his arms through the jacket—Poe’s old jacket—and settled the worn leather against his shoulders.

Leia caught his eye first. She stopped talking. Finn’s gaze followed.

Poe knew his mouth was hanging open, but he could not help it.

“Poe!” Finn propelled across the room to give him an unexpectedly enthusiastic hug. Finn didn’t do handshakes; at least, not with Poe.

“What is this?” Poe ran his hands up the familiar leather to take Finn’s shoulders in a firm, fond grip. Seeing it back on Finn, especially now that Finn knew the significance of donning a fellow member’s old clothing, made his throat unexpectedly dry. He had felt defeated that night, when Finn had vetoed every jacket Poe produced. “I thought it was unsalvageable.”

“It wasn’t… until I was cleared to handle weapons.” At Poe’s look, Finn laughed. “Scissors and a needle. I went back to the toss pile and found that red jacket. What do you think?” Finn turned around, light on his feet. The red leather was stark against the muted tan of the jacket, but the swath of it going up his spine was striking, a visible reminder of how close he had come to dying on Starkiller.

“It’s incredible,” Poe said, dazed. He traced the neat stitching with the pads of his fingers. “Where did you learn to sew?”

“That’s classified.” Finn tilted his head ever so slightly towards Leia.

Leia cleared her throat.

“I’ll just let you…” Finn cast a knowing look to Leia.

Poe tried to tell himself that he did not watch Finn leave, but there was no one to lie to in his head.

“Commander,” Leia said, visibly fighting a smile.

“General.”

“Close your mouth. You look like a gooberfish.”

That brought Poe back to the present. “Tell me you’re giving me a mission.”

Leia’s lips quirked. “Come with me.”

Instead of inviting him into her office, Leia lead him to the transport hangar. She was quiet, and Poe was not about to push his luck.

Leia’s personal pilot, Div, awaited them at her personal transport. “Buckle up,” he said. “The winds are angry as a rancor, today.”

The transport’s old thrusters fired up, the piping behind Poe’s head hissing particles of energy. Resistance transports always put Poe on edge. They were not manufactured models, rolled out of factories and meeting the most up-to-date safety regulations, but composites of several different crafts pieced together by their engineers. There was immense room for error in such an endeavor. Poe trusted his own instincts on that front — Duska was too precious to lose due to sloppiness, not to mention his own life — but not necessarily someone else’s.

The ride was shaky, due partly to the raging winds battering the durasteel sides of the ship, but also Div’s inability to compensate for their wrath. Poe’s stomach turned, and his shoulder smarted from smacking the wall several times. His fingers itched for the controls. He knew how to ride the winds. It was a dance; a balance of power and give. You never won when you fought the wind.

After a tumultuous twenty-minute flight, the transport touched down. Its landing gear clunked twice before making its final thump to the ground. Poe was embarrassed _for_ Div.

Their destination was an abandoned hangar. It smelled of oil, metal, and earth. Vines swayed from the ceiling as the transport’s engines powered down.

Poe followed Leia into a winding corridor that was visibly less structurally sound than their base. Its ceiling had crumbled in places. Banks of dirt mounted on the floor and forced a circuitous path.

Ducking under a partially collapsed threshold, Poe stumbled at the sight before him. “Where in the blue blazes did you get a TIE fighter?”

Poe circled it, sweeping his palm over a debilitating blast mark under its port engine.

Leia watched him inspect the ship from a distance. “It was shot down on the moon of Neian. The pilot was able to set her down with minimal damage. Its occupants fled on foot and disappeared without a trace.”

“Nearchs probably got them.” Poe fished a small flashlight from his utility belt and directed its beam at the gaping hold. The damage was mostly superficial, but two severed lines, glossy with escaped engine fluid, appeared suspect. “The blast grazed one of the fusion reactors. Does she even turn on?”

“I was hoping you could help us with that.”

“I’m not an engineer.”

“Engineers are coming out of our ears.”

Poe threw her a pointed side-glance. “So, obviously, you call on the pilot to put her back together.”

“Impudent flyboy.” Leia shook her head, not even trying to hide her smile. She indulged his smart mouth more than any of the generals. Akbar had no concept of sarcasm, and Statura did not appreciate comic relief at most junctures. “You know how to fly one of these. You know how they work.”

“X-grade materials won’t work on a TIE fighter,” Poe said.

“Your squadron shot down several TIE fighters back on Takodana. Fighters with parts we need.”

Poe’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. “You want me to charge into warspace to scavenge parts from crashed TIE fighters that I shot down months ago?”

“It’s not the strangest directive I’ve ever given you.”

True. His undercover mission to an outer rim nightclub came to mind. A shudder raced down Poe’s spine at the memory. Finn had goggled at him when he regaled him with that story. Sometimes, his life felt like fiction.

“Might I ask what you are planning on doing with this TIE fighter?”

“That’s classified.”

A thought occurred to him as he remembered Finn’s sly look back in the command room. He did not like it one bit. “Does Finn have anything to do with this super classified plan?”

“That’s classified.”

“Of course, it is.” Poe raked a hand through his hair, resting it at the crown of his head as he tipped it back and surveyed the wreckage. This mission, whatever it was, screamed of Finn’s involvement. “Give me a few days.”

Leia took his face in her hands and drew him down for a soft kiss to the brow. “That’s why you’re my favorite.”

“I do have one condition.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed, but her lips curled as if knowing it was coming. “Name your terms, Commander.”

“When it’s done, I get to fly it.”

Leia laughed and walked away.

They were silent on the flight back, mostly because Div was not cleared to know what lie hidden in the abandoned hangar. It gave Poe a chance to speculate what Leia had up her sleeve.

It was one thing to get a derelict TIE fighter in working order, but another entirely to do something effective with it. The First Order would have revoked its clearances. It would not welcome any wayward ship into its ports or hangars without extreme scrutiny.

Before, such a mission would have been inconceivable, but now…. Now, they had a stormtrooper.

* * *

“I’ve assembled a crew for you.”

Poe was in the midst of packing provisions when he heard Leia’s voice address someone nearby.

“Poe. It’s a crew for you.” 

She was talking to him? Poe felt his face contort with a mix of incredulity and irritation. “Of people? Absolutely not. I’ll go it alone.”

Leia clasped her hands behind her back, unfazed by his attitude. “You need a ship with significant cargo space. A smuggler’s ship would serve best, on the off-hand chance you get boarded.”

Poe followed her gaze to the Corellian YT-1300 docked at the far end of the landing strip. Chewbacca had returned sans Rey days ago, claiming that she had begun training under Luke Skywalker and had settled in for the long haul. Poe had not seen Finn since the Millennium Falcon’s arrival, and could only imagine how crushed he had been when Chewbacca had disembarked alone.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Part of him expected Leia to clap his back and ridicule the look on his face, before admitting she was joking. Poe could be an easy target.

Leia’s face was as sober as a Calamarian’s. “The Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs.”

“Before I was _born.”_ They would be lucky if it made the Kessel Run at a crawl in the shape it was in. “You expect me to fly that tin can into a warzone and come back in one piece? You ask for miracles, General.”

“That’s your fault. You’ve conditioned me to expect them from you.”

As Poe sputtered, Chewbacca descended the ramp with Finn in tow. “My crew?”

This mission was fast becoming an albatross.

“I suggest you convene and delegate what needs to be done.”

The hairs on the back of Poe’s neck rose, and he turned to find Finn peering at him from across the platform. Poe gave him a thumbs up. Of all people, Finn knew the momentousness of Poe’s first mission back.

Finn’s only response was a curt nod. As Poe watched, confounded, Finn turned to Chewbacca and helped him guide the fuel lines under the ship.

What was _that?_

* * *

After a frenetic two hours in which Poe thanked the stars — over and over — that he usually operated alone, the Millenium Falcon entered the stars. One hour later, she betrayed her age. The lights flickered before self-setting to dim, and the generator roared to life.

The life support system had short-circuited. A telling start to their mission.

Poe canted his hip against the threshold, passively watching as Chewbacca ducked below. “Piece of trash,” he muttered under his breath.

No sooner had the words left his lips than Poe found himself flung backwards into the cockpit, landing on the floor with an angry wookie flailing atop him. Finn vaulted out of his seat and into the fray, but it was a smart zap from BB-8 that finally parted them.

Chastened, Poe averted his gaze as Chewbacca retreated into the hold.

“Do you want help?” Poe called after him.

Chewbacca’s response was an impressive slur of curse words.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”

The temperature had plunged dangerously. If it kept dropping like this, they would need to make an emergency landing. Poe couldn’t wait to tell Leia: _‘I told you so.’_

Poe rubbed his arms, hands brisk and quivering, to coax warmth back into his limbs. His teeth chattered. It was unbearably cold.

“I could have handled that better.”

Finn, who had taken an elbow to the face during the scuffle, removed his palm long enough to cast him a death glare from the co-pilot’s seat. His responses had been short and cool ever since Poe had joined them on the platform on Lakemon. Poe wondered if his strange reticence were due in part to being back on the Millennium Falcon. Last time, Finn had been unconscious, dying, with Rey at his side.

“I’ll go find us blankets.”

BB-8 had already discovered the emergency supplies. Poe arrived to find him producing two steaming mugs. He was the best droid in the galaxy. Poe tucked the thickest blankets under his arm and balanced the mugs in his palm before returning to the cockpit.

“Drink this,” Poe instructed. “It’ll help.”

Finn cradled the mug in his palms and took a grateful sip as Poe draped the synthetic fabric over his shoulders.

Cocooning in his own, Poe slumped into the pilot’s seat. His breath rose in delicate swirls. He watched the little clouds rise and extinguish as the chilly cockpit stole their fleeting warmth.

“I had a friend once. Before.”

Poe turned to Finn, perplexed by the non sequitur.

Finn’s gaze pointedly remained locked on the stars.

“I thought you’d never had one.”

Finn shrugged, eyes distant. “Didn’t know that’s what he was. He was a rotten stormtrooper, always tripping over his feet and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He couldn’t shoot the broad side of a bantha if he tried. Most in the FN Corps reviled him for perpetuating the stereotype. I took him under my wing. When he fell, I pulled him to his feet. When he was scared, I held his hand and encouraged him to push on. He made me laugh. At night, we would scheme ways to seek revenge on Phasma. Childish pranks, mostly, though some nights ventured into darker territory. It depended on the day. He would be proud of what Han Solo and I did to her.”

Finn hugged the blanket to his body, mug held out to avoid a spill, though several drops escaped as his arm shivered outside the confines of the fabric.

“Supporting one another was encouraged. Our captains perceived close bonds amongst soldiers a formidable weapon, but there were limits. FN-2003 held our corps back, kept us landed and relegated to unsavory duties. I never left his side, if I could help it. He would have misstepped, and they would have taken him from me. They would have submitted him to months of reconditioning or disposed of him.”

“Is that fancy First Order terminology for….”

“It’s exactly what you think it means.”

Poe winced. “Do you ever think of returning to find him?”

A deep furrow appeared between Finn’s eyebrows. “Slip is dead.”

Slip? So stormtroopers _did_ have names? Or nicknames, at the very least? Why hadn’t Finn had one?

“What happened?”

“He died at my feet. A Resistance fighter shot him.” Finn looked at Poe, the first time since starting his tale.

Poe knew that look. He knew Jakku had been Finn’s first and only foray into active duty. His stomach dropped to his feet. “Was it me? By the stars, Finn. I’m sorry.”

Poe unwound his arm and reached for Finn’s shoulder to offer a comforting squeeze, but Finn tilted out of reach. That burned.

“Tell me about your nightmares.”

Poe’s hand jerked back. “My what?”

“Did you really have them?”

“Did I—? Of course, I did! I _do_!” And they continued to escalate. It was only a matter of time before Kylo broke through whatever power had shielded Poe from his presence for so many weeks. He could sense the moment drawing near.

“And that’s why you came to the medbay?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a rotten liar, you know that?” Finn’s eyes were hard, as if affronted that Poe would think him such a fool.

“I’m confused. What are you trying to say?”

“Are you my friend, Poe? I’m struggling with the concept. Slip was my friend, and he never lied to me.”

Poe made a vague sound in the back of his throat.

Finn reached into his pocket and slid his old datapad across the control panel. From where he sat, Poe could see the medbay insignia at the top. It appeared to be a visitor’s roster with logs for every visit — authorized and unauthorized — to Finn’s room.

“What do you make of this?”

Despite his better instincts, Poe took a look. His stomach dropped to his feet. Rey’s name topped the log, but then there was nothing for three weeks. Not one visitor. On the night of Finn’s awakening and subsequent attack on the medbay, a flagged note of the highest order: _Inform General Organa if P.Dameron does not show._ Poe’s visits began to appear. There were a slew of them, always recorded in the middle of the night. Always validated by the general’s insignia. It was damning.

Poe’s heart hammered in his chest.

“The general pulled you aside the first night I awoke.”

“She wanted to make sure everyone still had ten fingers and toes, or in Yaru’s case, eight and six,” Poe said weakly.

Poe’s gaze remained riveted to the log. He was afraid to look up. He knew how this looked. He knew what he would see in Finn’s eyes, given that he could hear it in his achingly quiet voice.

His silence seemed to answer Finn’s unasked question, because he took a long sip from his mug. The drink couldn’t possibly be warm anymore.

“You were ordered to watch me, weren’t you?”

Poe’s mouth opened, but at Finn’s glowering look, he realized going down the path of denial would only dig him deeper. _Finn knew._ “Maybe a little. But I didn’t think you needed a keeper!”

Finn barked a bitter laugh. “I thought you were my friend. The more I try to sort out the concept, the more I realize you are something else entirely. Friends don’t spy on friends. Or use fake nightmares as an excuse to monitor them.”

“Spying? Lying? There is a lot of maligning going on in this conversation.” Poe willed Finn to look at him, but Finn peered out the viewport as if his life depended on it.

“It’s all right here, Poe.” Finn gestured at the log. “Every night. Like clockwork. Did you write reports after, ready by the time the general woke that morning? FN-2187 not homicidal. Mad skills at sabacc suggests nefarious tactical skills. No discernible inclination to rejoin the First Order.”

“She told me to befriend you, not spy on you.”

“To influence me?”

“What—no! To be there for you.”

“And you didn’t want to be there for me?”

“Of course, I did.”

“Which is why you visited so often before the general’s directive?”

Poe diverted his gaze. “I was busy.”

“And the general fixed that, didn’t she? She grounded you.” Finn measured Poe with a stormy look. “I’ve spent many nights wondering why the general did that. You are her best pilot. This directive took high priority, didn’t it?”

“I was grounded because of my night—”

“Enough with the kriffing nightmares! I _know_ you made them up. By the sons of Malachor, Poe. You pretended to be my friend. You took advantage of me when I was vulnerable, and made me believe you cared. You are no better than the people who stole me from my family.”

That hurt. Poe tried to collect himself, but his insides felt constricted. It was difficult to find his voice. “Finn, listen to me. I did not lie about the nightmares. Leia grounded me because I passed out during a meeting. In the same breath, she asked me to watch you, but I refused on the grounds you have so eloquently described. It reeked of manipulation. Those first few nights, I came to the medbay for sedatives. I kept finding myself drawn to your bedside instead. Over time, I discovered that spending time with you was making my nightmares fade. I could finally sleep, and I enjoyed your company, so I kept coming back.”

“I understand.” Finn’s tone was anything but understanding. Flat. Betrayed. “Glad I could help you sleep.”

“No, you _don’t_ understand.”

Finn stood abruptly. “Chewie probably needs help.”

“Don’t go.”

Finn stopped in the doorway, but didn’t turn around. “You might keep your distance. Too many beings on this ship want to tear the limbs from your body.” With that, he left.

Poe sat alone, wrong-footed and shaking for reasons other than the cold. “What just happened?” he asked the empty cockpit.

BB-8 nuzzled his leg.


	7. The Salvage

_It does not pay to enter his dreams slowly. After weeks of playing cat and mouse, and eluding Kylo Ren at every turn, Poe has learned how to ascertain the exact moment his mind passes from body to beyond._

Poe is draped across a bench in the streets of the late Hosnian Prime. Of all the places his dreamworld has taken him, this is the oddest. Poe has only been there a handful of times… or maybe that is the point. Kylo is fed up with Poe knowing his surroundings well enough to dodge him.

Kylo’s distinctive stride fills the air.

Poe takes stock of his surroundings as he slips into the nearest alley. The paths are eerily empty. It is the oldest quarter of Hosnian Prime. Ancient rails installed in the pavement pay homage to a time when spaceships were few and the more efficient mode of transportation was railcar. Where there should be merchants selling their wears and patrons flooding into and spilling out of bars, there is nothing. It is a ghost town. The skies should be awash with light and humming with the songs of hundreds of ships.

Poe feels a stabbing sense of loss for the lives that had made this world bustle and thrive.

 _“Poe Dameron!”_ Kylo’s voice rings out at such a low register as to be impossible to trace to a source location. It could have come from anywhere. _“You cannot evade me, tonight. I_ will _find you.”_

For the first time in weeks, Poe believes him. A street lamp across the way flickers once, twice, then goes out. Goosebumps ascend his arms.

_“Your despair shines like a beacon.”_

Poe cannot stay here. The street appears clear, so Poe dashes out of his nook and down the uneven sidewalk. Instead of wasting time ducking into each door and alleyway for cover, he takes a gamble and _runs._

He must put as much distance between himself and Kylo as he can.

Poe makes it five blocks when he hears it. Kylo’s thundering steps, no longer steady and calculated, but hurtling towards him.

Poe needs to get off this road. He careens around a corner, sprinting full tilt down its perpendicular counterpart once he regains his footing. His lungs strain to summon enough oxygen. His muscles burn like molten metal.

He darts into an alleyway, then pivots onto the next major road.

As he rounds another corner, Poe spots a set of stairs leading below street-level. They are protected by a thin metal railing meant to keep pedestrians from taking an unexpected spill. Poe kicks it hard. After three tries, the end bar comes loose. He wrests it from the top rail. Makeshift weapon in hand, he runs until he cannot run any further.

He just has to stay one step ahead.

He occasionally hears Kylo’s shouts, more frequently his footsteps, but never sees him. It is beginning to feel like their usual game.

Desperate to catch his breath, Poe dives into the alcove of a loading dock. Trembling fingers wrap tightly around the metal rod, holding it close as he tries to settle his hyperventilating gasps. His entire body shakes.

He thinks of the directions he gave Finn that first night in the medbay. His eyelids fall shut. _I want you to breathe, in and out, three times, and tell yourself that you are safe._ He pictures Finn’s face, open and trusting, pragmatic but also fiercely determined. That inevitably leads to Finn’s hurt expression on the Millennium Falcon. His accusations.

_No, no, don’t dwell on dark thoughts. It calls to him._

Poe peeks around the corner.

And comes face to face with the forbidding mask of Kylo Ren.

Poe jumps backward with a startled shout and swings the bar with all of his might. A flash of red fills his vision a moment before he hears the clink of his severed weapon hitting to the ground. The familiar buzz brings horrible memories to the fore. That burning red heat; curdling, scorching his palm.

Chucking the rest of his weapon at Kylo, Poe dashes into the street. A vice-like grip catches his arm. The momentum, now anchored to his captured arm, reels him into a whiplashing circle. He strikes the wall with jarring force and would have collapsed if not for Kylo’s hand closed over his throat.

Jagged bricks dig into his back.

“Caught you.” Kylo is panting for breath beneath that horrid mask. It has been so long since Poe’s seen it. It’s jarring.

Poe sags against the wall, out of breath. “Only took you four weeks.”

“I would have waited six.”

“You could…” Poe shrugs his shoulders, “let me go, and postpone this happy reunion for another two? I’ll mark you in my calendar.”

Kylo huffs a laugh, although it is distorted behind the mask. “I’ve missed that tongue of yours. Never got to hear it while you were dodging me.”

The grip on Poe’s neck is not so tight as to cut off his air, but he struggles to draw in adequate breath regardless. His vision blurs around the edges. Poe claws at the arm until Kylo captures his left wrist and, in a fluid motion, slams him face-first into the opposite wall. The sharp stonework cuts into Poe’s cheek. Kylo wrests one arm behind his back, forcing Poe’s palm between his shoulder blades.

Kylo hums into his ear. “Tonight was a particularly thrilling round, don’t you think?”

“I have other words for it,” Poe mutters.

“I couldn’t have found you without this…” His body crowds against Poe’s back. His helmet meets Poe’s cheek. Poe jumps at the bite of cold. “What _happened_ to you? Such _anguish_. It’s intoxicating.”

“Nothing.” Poe tries to arc away from the touch, but the wall is already flush against his front. “My day was normal. I ate, I flew, then I ate again—”

“You can’t lie worth a damn, can you?”

So people kept saying.

“I lie just fine,” Poe sniffed.

“Then tell me your precious Resistance is not conspiring against the First Order at this very moment.”

“We’re always conspiring against the First Order. That shouldn’t be news.”

“Always a game with you, isn’t it?”

Poe manages a sardonic laugh. “That’s the stormtrooper calling the snowtrooper white.”

Somehow, despite the daunting mask, Poe knows Kylo is grinning. Were bad guys supposed to grin as much as him? Kylo found amusement in a great many things. One would think he would be brooding and serious.

“What are you up to, _civilian_?”

“Recruiting pilots, mostly.”

Kylo throws back his head and laughs, loud and clear. “You shouldn’t ever lie, Poe Dameron. Honestly. If you were to ever play Liar’s Cut, you’d have to sell yourself into slavery to pay off your debt.”

“Nah, I’d just have Finn win me back out of trouble.”

“Finn? FN-2187?” Kylo’s tone grows dark. Poe’s jaw snaps shut before more incriminating _stupidity_ can come out of his mouth. “The _traitor_? He is still alive? And he’s with the Resistance.” It is not a question. “I would have thought he’d have run to the far corners of the galaxy, by now. Coward.”

“He’s not a coward.” It comes out with more vigor than Poe had intended.

An image of Finn wrapped in the blanket on the Millennium Falcon crosses his mind. Finn carries himself with such poise and resolution these days, but his shoulders had hunched like a man profoundly betrayed. Poe had hurt him, perhaps irrevocably.

Kylo inhales deeply. “Do that again.”

A wave of irritation overwhelms Poe at the prospect of having this discussion. Again. Of dealing with these nightly visits. Again. He cannot play this game. Not anymore.

“Why are you still at this?” Poe asks, peevish despite himself.

“You said I needed to improve my technique.”

“I was being sarcastic. Considering your father, one would expect you to have a firm grasp of the concept.”

There is stillness behind him. Time seems to stop.

“Do not speak of him in my presence.” Kylo’s voice is deeper, more visceral.

Poe has struck a cord, and by the skies, he is going to hang onto it for dear life.

“Who? The man who gave you life and loved you until his last breath? The one whom you impaled with your joke of a lightsaber?”

Poe feels a hand sink into his hair a split second before his face is bashed against the wall. He yelps in pain. Blood oozes down his torn cheek.

“Shut up.”

“Let me go, Ren.” Poe’s voice contains a note of fatigue that he cannot help. He is run ragged. “ _Let me go_. I offer you no advantage, no fulfillment of prophecy. You cannot mind-fuck information about the Resistance from me. Not in this dreamworld, where you have no discernible use of the Force.”

Kylo’s grasp tightens, as if expecting Poe to attempt escape. As if thinking Poe has only just sussed out this caveat. Poe has known since the Finalizer, when he had thrown Kylo’s lightsaber, only to be bodily dumped as Kylo bolted for his weapon. He should have been able to summon it to his palm, just as he should have been able to stop Poe’s sprinting retreat on Jakku with just a thought.

“Please,” Poe continues. “It’s Skywalker, you want. Rey. I don’t know who. Not me. I am only a reminder of your failures.”

Kylo barks a laugh. “Failures!” Poe’s body rises off the ground, the arm wrenched behind his back bearing all of his weight. Poe cries out.

“Yes, failures. Not only am I the Resistance — _the_ pilot who led the attack on Starkiller and fired its final shots — but I am your mother’s point pilot. She tousles my hair, kisses my brow—”

The words are stolen from his mouth as Kylo throws him to the ground. Poe throws his arms over his face, expecting Kylo to fall upon him with pummeling fists or the swipe of his lightsaber… but nothing happens. He peers over his arm.

“No discernible use of the Force,” Kylo muses, echoing Poe’s words. His glove has been removed, and he eyes his naked hand with academic interest. “It is extraordinarily difficult to access in this world, I admit.” His head turns to pin Poe with a hollow gaze. “But not impossible. And your vacation has given me time to hone my skills.”

The force lightning strikes Poe before he can react. He had _forgotten._ It is excruciating. His body seizes and arcs against the concrete. The sensation is nothing and everything. An evil for which there exists no word. An omnipresent evil so viscous, so abysmal that it stops all thought. It batters at and ensconces him in its grasp, tightening its hold the more he bucks, twisting and violating his very being with every jerk. It bowls him over and crashes against him – through him – like the angry waves of a tempest-ridden ocean, inundating his senses with darkness.

* * *

Poe awoke with a violent jolt, screaming in agony.

In the darkness, he became aware of hands on him, grappling at his wrists. The sensation thrust him into a blind panic. He fought with everything he had — punched, kicked, clawed, and bucked. His knee sank into the other’s gut when he heard it… Finn’s voice calling to him, an edge of hysteria to his tone.

“Poe! Poe, it’s me!”

Opening his eyes, Poe realized with a start that the chilled surface beneath his back was no longer the loading dock, but his bunk on the Millennium Falcon. Finn hovered above him, one knee on the bunk, both hands bracing Poe’s clenched fists against his chest.

Poe stared up at him, breathless and disoriented.

“Finn?”

It was over. He couldn’t grasp that _it was over._ He could still feel the blood boiling in his veins; the stretched-out, broken feeling of his body rending into particles and merging again. Everything hurt. His spine jerked as phantom bolts roiled through his system.

Something tickled his cheek. Bewildered, Poe uncurled one fist and prodded at it. A bite of pain made him snatch his hand back. Blood. He stared at the red smear on his fingertips, remembering how the bricks had sliced into his cheek.

His gaze returned to Finn, whose eyes shone wide and luminescent in the darkness.

Finn sat back suddenly, as if realizing he was still half-lying on top of Poe. “I—I didn’t know,” he said, voice choked.

Poe struggled to chase the growing distance between them, but his wrenched shoulder gave out when he tried to put weight on it. He toppled backwards with a pained gasp.

Chewbacca made a soft inquiry from the hallway. The door was open a crack, and Poe could make out both the hovering wookie and BB-8’s glossy photoreceptor peering in.

“He’s fine,” Finn called out. “Go back to sleep.”

Finn’s hand covered Poe’s forehead, then carded through his sweaty curls. “Tell me how I can help.”

Poe strove to catch his breath. His throat was raw from screaming. “Don’t leave.”

Finn nodded, quickly, and took a shaky breath. “Ok, ok, I won’t go anywhere.”

Finn shifted away, perhaps to retrieve the blanket from the floor.

Poe could not have that. He surged forward and ensconced Finn in a sudden, crushing hug. Finn managed an overwhelmed: “What—oof!” before the force of Poe’s hold seemed to squeeze the rest of his sentence from existence.

Poe couldn’t talk. Not yet. He wanted to say, ‘you woke me up’ and infuse it with every ounce of gratitude he felt, but he could not find his voice. ‘Thank you’ was not enough. ‘Thank you’ was an insult to the emotions cascading through his body.

Everything hurt.

No one had ever woken him up.

Poe felt wrecked, his insides sandblasted and raw.

Poe’s breathing grew more labored, small sounds escaping on each exhale. His entire frame shook with the effort to hold onto his emotions… until he realized what was happening. He was _crying._ Finn’s arms encircled him as the sobs wracked his body, his grasp hard enough to bruise. It was painful in the most beautiful way. Poe clung to Finn; fists wound in his jacket, face burrowed in the crook of his shoulder. Even as the floodgates opened and waves of grief came crashing out, Poe felt anchored. 

A minute later — or maybe ten, maybe twenty, Poe was not sure whether he passed out — he heard something. Humming. Finn was rocking him gently, his cheek resting against the top of Poe’s head.

 _“Blues and silvers, churn and rock,”_ he sang, _“and something about a ship.”_ Finn was singing Poe’s lullaby.

Poe’s heart swelled. He breathed deeply of the familiar scent of his old leather jacket and the warm essence of _Finn._

“Hey,” Finn whispered, rubbing Poe’s back. “Can you scoot over? My back can’t hold this angle for much longer.”

Wordlessly, Poe shifted on the small bunk. There was little room, so he turned onto his side, facing the wall to keep weight off his shoulder.

Finn must have noticed him stabilizing it, because he placed his hand over Poe’s. “It’s not dislocated, is it?”

“Wrenched,” Poe murmured.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

 _Everywhere._ “No.”

Finn sidled close. His knees slotted against the backs of Poe’s, chest warm against his back. He wrapped an arm around Poe. His hold was strong, just this side of too tight. His nose brushed the back of Poe’s neck, the tip cold, his breath conversely warm. Poe felt encompassed.

Sleep did not come easily. Poe lie awake, still shaking minutely; tense despite himself. He feared falling back to sleep. Feared returning to the loading dock and Kylo Ren’s ready force lightning.

Nor did he want to stay awake and think about what had just happened, how Finn had _seen._

It was not that Poe saw vulnerability as a weakness, it just… well, that was exactly what it was. He hated asking for help, and liked even less when one saw him in need of it. His problems were best tackled in isolation. Or so he had always thought.

After Hosnian Prime, Poe had offered reassuring hugs and kind words to any who needed it, acting as the crutch his squadron needed to pick themselves up and fight for the cause. As for his own grief, he had waited until later that evening, canted against the closed door of his own quarters, knees tucked to his chest, head upon his knees to deal with it. That was how he operated, and it had served him well over the years.

Kylo Ren had not come after him over the years.

And now… _someone knew._ And not just anyone: Finn. After weeks of hiding, weeks of feeling weak and alone, his secret was not his to suffer alone. He was both indescribably relieved and utterly mortified. What would happen now? Would Finn fear him? Would he avoid Poe, ever mindful of the unspeakable connection he shared with the enemy?

Poe waited in the darkness, certain Finn would ask questions.

Instead, when Finn spoke, his voice was blessedly light. “No wonder you did not mind getting trounced by me at sabacc or forced into watching awful holovids, when _that_ was the alternative.”

Poe felt the tension in his chest release. It was a crazy sort of balance. Finn had shared so many of his vulnerabilities to Poe. It was only appropriate that Poe lower his shields enough to expose one or two of his own.

Poe fell into an exhausted sleep with Finn’s arms wound impossibly tight around him.

He did not dream at all.

* * *

The Millennium Falcon arrived on Takodana three hours later, and not a moment too soon. While Chewbacca had managed to stabilize the life support systems, it was still cold enough to freeze the antenna off a snowspeeder.

Despite the cramped bunk and tickle of Finn’s soft sighs at his neck, Poe had slept like the dead. When he awoke, curled close to his impromptu bedmate, he felt more rested than his night should have left him. Finn was the manifestation of warmth, and not just of the temperature variety.

The Millennium Falcon’s landing gear clunked beneath them, aged hinges screeching in his attuned pilot’s ears, but Finn snoozed on. He still slept sprawled on his stomach — probably more out of habit than a medical directive. There was comfort in that familiarity. Weeks of separation could not change Finn from the man Poe had grown to know in the medbay.

The one arm and leg draped over Poe was new.

When the reverse thrusters fired up, Finn awoke with a comedic snort. His eyes opened. He jumped at their proximity, noses mere inches apart.

“Have we landed?”

“I hope not. There’s only a co-pilot out there.”

“Shouldn’t you… go help?”

Poe stretched beneath Finn’s limbs. “I’m stocking up on heat.”

“Let me help.” Finn sat up, taking the blanket with him. The chill swooped in like an assaulting landing crew. “Takodana is warm. The sooner we land, the better.” Finn snagged Poe’s jacket from the peg and tossed it at him.

Poe threaded his arms into the sleeves, startled by the abruptness of Finn’s awakening. He had expected questions last night; had expected awkwardness this morning. It was only a matter of time. While Finn had a keen sense of when to leave well alone, last night’s revelation could not be ignored. Not when an important mission lie at their doorstep.

On his way out, Poe paused beside the room’s tiny mirror. There were three scratches on his cheek, now scabbed over. Tilting his head, brushing his fingers over the marks, Poe wondered whether they could have been created by fingernails. Perhaps Finn had accidentally clawed him in their tussle. Or maybe Poe had done it himself? It had to be claw-marks… except that they didn’t look it.

Poe vividly remembered the awful sensation of bricks against his cheek, grating. He shivered and hurried into the cockpit.

* * *

Once the Millennium Falcon landed, Poe and Finn tumbled over each other to seek the sticky heat of Takodana. The air clung to the skin in moist droplets, but Poe did not care. He shook his jacket from his shoulders, rolled up his sleeves, and tipped his head back.

Finn’s movements mirrored his own, but he seemed reluctant to part with his own jacket. The thought warmed Poe more than the jungle heat.

The Falcon had landed equidistant from two crash sites spotted from the air. Upon closer inspection, however, both were too obliterated to salvage. From the depth and range of their craters, the two fighters had hit the ground at breakneck speeds. Twisted metal wrapped around trees, and most major parts — brace wings, command pod, and pylons — were virtually unidentifiable.

There were several other telling burn scars dispersed across the landscape. It was decided that they would split up. Chewbacca had seemingly forgiven Poe for his disparaging comment, or at least recognized that Poe had his own demons to battle without adding an angry wookie to the mix, but seemed uninterested in working with him. He volunteered to go north alone, while Poe and Finn would double up on a landspeeder to venture south.

BB-8 would stay behind to watch the Falcon and alert them of ships or uninvited lifeforms.

Poe mounted the landspeeder and waited for Finn to join him. His fingers curled around the maneuver controls. It was his first solo flight since his grounding. No rickety ship and surly co-pilot would ruin this for him. Once Finn’s arms looped his stomach, Poe opened the engine and let her soar.

Finn’s grip tightened like a vice around Poe’s ribs. “Are you trying to get us killed?” he yelled in his ear.

“Just trying to make good time.”

Poe would have bruises to show for his cocksure flying. He didn’t care. This was what he lived for: the speed and adrenaline. The weightlessness of moving at inadvisable speeds awoke a part of him that had lain dormant for too long.

Finn gave a frantic yowl as they dodged a downed tree. Damp leaves nipped their sides. “Stop that!”

“Trust me, Finn.” Poe pushed the thrusters harder.

Finn’s forehead pressed into Poe’s shoulder, as if he could watch no longer.

Up ahead, incongruous stripes of blue began to peek through the dense forest. A massive break in the trees. Poe negotiated the speeder over the first line of stumps. This TIE-fighter had rolled at a shallow angle. Broken trunks scattered the forest floor, skeletal branches blackened and clawing at the sky like fallen creatures. The ship had landed on its side. Circling the fighter once, slowly, Poe took note of debilitating damage to the starboard brace wing. The fighter would never fly again, but its parts might have fared better than its exterior.

Finn staggered to get his feet on solid ground the moment Poe slowed down enough for him to safely disembark.

“Well,” Poe said, clapping his hands. “Ready for a spot of lunch?”

“Shut up,” Finn said without malice, though his pinched lips spoke to his wooziness.

Side by side, they hiked up to the derelict fighter.

“We can work with this… right?”

Poe shaded his eyes and squinted up at the ship. “Boost me up.”

Poe spent the afternoon elbow-deep in the mangled guts of the TIE-fighter, excavating usable parts and carefully handing them down to Finn, who made several treks back to the speeder to load its hover trailer. A companionable quiet hung in the air. Poe was too busy concentrating on his task to let his mind wander. He had always been like that. All thoughts went to the back-burner when there was work to be done.

As he endeavored to dislodge a feed to the laser cannon, Poe felt a touch to his ankle. He wriggled his way to the opening of the ship to find Finn stretching his arms and suggesting they take a break.

Finn sank onto a fallen log, while Poe lie spread-eagle on the ground. When he tipped his head back, his smarting neck gave an ominous crack. His eyes fell shut under the glare of the sun.

“Tell me about your dreams.”

Poe pressed his lips together, quiet for a long time. “You don’t want to know about my dreams.”

“I _have_ to know.”

Poe looked up at him, eyebrows raised.

“You are slotted to be my right-hand man in this upcoming mission. I have to know if you have been compromised.”

Poe squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest. “I haven’t been compromised.”

“Like hell, you haven’t. The general took away your ship.”

“We are at war. Everyone has nightmares.”

“Not like that, they don’t.”

Poe’s fingers skimmed the ridges on his cheek, wishing he could conceal them with more than his hand. His dreams were written across his cheek every time Finn looked at him. “I’ve got a grasp on it.”

“Didn’t look like it last night, when I awoke to blood-curdling screams and found you writhing half off your bunk.”

Finn was right. Poe had no grasp on his dreams. How could he? Kylo Ren had shown him his hand. Despair called to him. Poe did not consider himself a hotbed for despair, but these were dark times. Missions went awry. Comrades died. Innocent bystanders got caught in the First Order’s crosshairs. On nights like last night, when Poe had gone to sleep fearing he had lost the person around whom his universe had begun to revolve, it had been a matter of _when,_ not _if,_ Kylo found him.

The reality was: what happened when another Hosnian Prime occurred? What happened when someone got shot down? Would every low in his life result in the despair Kylo Ren sought? Would he ever be free?

“When did they start?”

“We are not talking about this.”

“Poe, so help me—I will get you removed from this mission. Was it recently? The general wouldn’t have sent you to Jakku if you were not fighting fit. Was it after the village? The Finalizer?”

Poe did not think he flinched. Maybe the tension in his shoulders gave it away. Finn’s mouth clanked shut. He said nothing for a long time.

“What did Kylo Ren do to you?”

Poe lurched to his feet, desperate to put space between himself and questions he did not want to answer. He plodded towards the TIE fighter at a clip that would have been a jog if not for the obstacles in his path. As he scrambled over a particularly tremendous trunk, his sleeve caught on a clawed branch and snagged.

He could hear Finn struggling to follow, hampered by the same hurdles. “Poe,” he called out, several steps behind.

When Poe arrived at the TIE fighter, his heart was thumping twice as fast as the small hike should have incited. “Give me a hand, would you?” He curled his fingers around the command pod and waited for Finn to produce his laced hands as a foothold.

Finn’s palms stayed where they were, braced on his hips. “Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Nothing to—Poe Dameron, so help me, I will get you grounded for _life_.” Finn seized Poe’s shoulder — the one Kylo Ren had wrenched last night — making its dull pain flare to life.

“He’s in my head!” Poe shouted before he could stop himself. The moment it left his lips, he recoiled, back smacking against the wing brace in an aborted attempt to escape.

Finn’s mouth worked, but nothing came out for a long time.

“What do you mean?”

“Every night, he comes to me. He… chases me down and tortures me. Tells me he will find me.” Poe’s hands shook.

“He can’t find you. It’s just a dream.”

As if Finn knew anything about dreams, Poe thought uncharitably. The man had never had one. Finn could not know the sensation of facing Kylo Ren every night; how it felt. That was not how dreams worked.

“Is it? I’m not so sure anymore.” Poe touched his cheek. “They started as memories. My captivity on the Finalizer. They started to… deviate. First, to Jakku, then to D’Qar, and even here, Takodana.”

Poe had expected Finn’s eyebrows to shoot up, to express horror upon learning that Poe had such a link to Kylo Ren. Instead, he appeared circumspect. He traced two fingers over his lips and looked askance at Poe.

“Could it be Echoes?”

Poe stared at him at a loss. “Echoes?”

“Echoes are ideas. Artificial ideas. Hux used them on stormtroopers all the time. They would plant them in our heads, then back off. Let them simmer and cook. The concept was that Echoes became more than a literal thought. The become a part of who we were. How we thought. Kylo Ren reviled the new system — he liked the reliability of clones — but one cannot discount how effectively those new thoughts took hold and splintered. They became deeply engrained very quickly. Once released, however, they couldn’t be controlled. Echoes got out of hand easily, and that resulted in the need for reconditioning.”

“But….” Poe tried to wrap his head around the notion that his own mind might have betrayed him so. He felt ill and needed to sit as a matter of urgency. He crumbled to his knees in the scattered sticks and leaves.

Finn knelt beside him, close enough to reach out and touch him, though he didn’t. “You say the dreams initially mirrored your true encounter with Kylo Ren?”

“Yes.”

“Then the later ones… mirrored that initial one, but with certain deviations? Would you say that Ren’s words and actions always reflected those of that first meeting, though? Just grew more sentient over time?”

Poe’s stunned expression spoke for him. “I thought stormtroopers didn’t dream?”

“Echoes manifest differently in everyone. Some assume the idea idea is legitimately theirs, others believe they learned the notion elsewhere. Others recognize that the idea isn’t theirs — myself, included — but struggle to extricate the authentic from the fake. We were always questioning which thoughts were original or tampered with. None of that would have worked with you. Kylo Ren would have known that. It had to be dreams. Visual, visceral, and experienced first-hand.”

Words evaporated on Poe’s tongue. It felt as if the rug had been yanked from under him. Could his dreams possibly be little more than Echoes? Planted thoughts, seeded in fear and blossoming into the nightmares that had plagued his nights? He had begun to accept that Kylo Ren was using the Force to visit him in his dreams. Did the Force even work that way?

Poe started when Finn’s hand landed on his knee.

“Poe?”

“Don’t request my removal from the mission, Finn. I admit I don’t have the greatest command over what happens in my sleep, but I am myself when I have something to do. I can still fly.”

“So I noticed,” Finn said, casting a death glare at the speeder. “Come on, let’s finish up.”

* * *

When they returned to the Falcon, speeder loaded to capacity and chugging from the additional weight, it became clear they would need to stay another day. Between their salvage and Chewie’s, there were still several missing parts. Chewie would track the western crash in the morning, while Poe and Finn would continue to the southernmost scar. They ate in silence, arms and eyelids heavy from the long day.

As Takodana’s single sun met the horizon, sending the corridors of the Falcon into brilliant shades of orange and red, Poe hovered beside his bunk. He contemplated the sparse mattress, then eyed the door longingly.

Even if the dreams were harmless Echoes, not actually Kylo Ren visiting him… they felt real. They frightened and hurt him. When Poe closed his eyes, he would still experience the terror of being caught. He would still suffer Kylo Ren’s taunts and attacks. It did not matter that the pain was not real. His mind and body believed it was real.

A throat cleared behind him. Finn stood in the doorway. “Is it true that spending time with me reduced the severity of your dreams?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never heard of Echoes reacting to the proximity of a person.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m sleeping in here.”

Poe blinked as Finn entered with an extra blanket. The ramp had been left open all day to invite the planet’s jungle warmth into the ship. BB-8 had guarded the entrance, zapper at the ready. It had improved the temperature situation, but the ship would be sealed for the night to prevent woodland creatures commandeering the ship while they slept. The temperature was going to drop.

“Are you sure?”

Finn let the blanket drift over Poe’s rumpled one. “I need you fighting fit.”

As Poe settled onto the bunk, Finn drew close. His arms did not wrap around him like last night.

Poe stared at the wall and listened to Finn breathe. His eyelids fluttered shut at the warm puffs on his neck.

Poe felt like a fool. What if his dreams _were_ just an idea planted in his head? How could his mind have betrayed him so? How could he have believed himself so singularly important that Kylo Ren would exert such effort to torment him? _Him_ , of all beings. Who was he to a Force-sensitive? A _civilian_ , that’s who. A nobody. A pawn in the powerful games of Jedi and Sith.

If Kylo Ren could enter a person’s mind, he would have chosen somebody — _anybody_ — else. Rey or Luke. Leia. Even Finn had incurred Kylo’s wrath more than Poe. Had Poe even angered him? Besides mouthing off, Poe had done little to call attention to himself. He had given Kylo the key to finding the map to Luke. If anything, the real Kylo Ren would think him weak, mindless. Target practice.

If Kylo Ren had planted the thought, then Poe’s mind had cooked up the rest. The notion was humiliating. His mind had taken that kiss and twisted it into something more than Kylo feeding off his pain. An obsession. A drive to find him. Poe was disgusted with himself.

He was just as weak-minded as a stormtrooper… except that Finn had recognized the Echoes invading his thoughts as an impostor’s. Poe was the lesser man. That was not news.

Poe twisted in place to inspect his bedpartner. The room was shrouded in darkness, but for the hint of glowing green from the control panel on the far wall.

Poe did not know whether Finn had forgiven him for Leia’s request. It had not come up. The fact that he was here, lying in his bunk, shimmied close enough to share heat, had to mean something.

Poe wished there were a way to show how much he appreciated Finn. It seemed all he had done was use and lie to him.

“You have done so much for me,” Poe whispered. “What have I done in return?”

“You gave me a name.”

Poe jumped. He could have sworn Finn was asleep. “I gave you a suggestion of a name.”

“And you gave me your jacket,” Finn continued, his voice a murmur.

“That’s nothing.”

“That’s everything.” Finn’s hand found Poe’s in the dark and closed over it. “Go to sleep.”


	8. The Briefing

The door to the command center clattered shut. Its hinges were old, the hiss of its released gases haggard. The panel beside it blinked twice, then turned red. Locked.

The room’s eight occupants eyed each other. The tension was palpable. Meetings were commonplace in the afternoons. Poe suspected Leia was not a morning person, though she would never admit it. She would claim that afternoon meetings allowed them time to process the previous day’s work without forcing the team into all-nighters.

In the middle of the night, meetings were a different beast.

Leia cleared her throat. “I don’t need to tell anyone that this mission is classified.”

The two majors beside Poe gave shaky nods. He recognized both, but did not know their names.

“Captain Wexley?”

Snap stepped forward, still clad in his orange flight suit. From the looks of his grimy face and shaggy beard, he had not left the command center since his arrival hours ago. “General,” he acknowledged before addressing the room. “After weeks of recon and innumerable leads, we’ve found the Finalizer. She was spotted two days ago, making berth near Dathomir. Based on her bearing, we believe she’s headed for the Felucia system.”

“Felucia?” Ackbar echoed. “A risky move. That outpost has been overrun by pirates and bounty hunters since the empire abandoned its stronghold.”

Statura steepled his fingers. “Could that be where Snoke is hiding?”

“No,” Leia said. “His whereabouts remain elusive. With the discovery of the Finalizer, however, we stand on the cusp of pinpointing his location.”

Poe shook his head. “The Finalizer will never bring us Snoke. The First Order would never be so foolish as to go near him in that resurgent-class monstrosity. She has been difficult to track, but not impossible.”

“We’re not going to follow her to Snoke. We have something much more clandestine planned.” Leia turned to the female major, who could have been Jess’s twin, if not for the extra fingers that indicated an outcrossed bloodline. “Thera?”

The young woman produced a small computer chip. “My team just finished this design. It is the smallest long-range tracking device at our disposal.”

A tracking device? Poe could have laughed at the absurdity that the Finalizer would somehow not notice a tracking signal sending waves back to the Resistance. That was Rebel Alliance 101.

No one else seemed as gobsmacked as him.

Thera’s eyes narrowed; she had noted his flippant look. Fortunately, she did not call him out. “Unlike other tracking devices, this one uses a deeply encrypted signal so fleeting that no ship’s computers would flag it. It is designed to resemble a speck of static, no different than naturally-occurring charged particles in space. All defensive systems discard signals that minute.”

The other major, a mid-aged humanoid, scratched his beard and shook his head. “If it has such a weak signal, what good could it do for us? What information can it send?”

“Good question, Vestun.” Thera inserted the chip into the astromech at her side. “It will trace in and out-going signals. Not their content, because that would require too strong a wave, but their destinations.”

The droid projected a holomap. Tiny specs of light hung in the air like luminescent insects hovering over the glistening surface of a nighttime lake. As they watched, specks flashed across the map, some so condensed that they merged into a great light. A dot density map.

Leia stepped in. “The device can only communicate pings, but the ability to map communications to and from the First Order’s greatest destroyer is invaluable. We can trace the distribution of its suppliers and supporters, even locate its new base of operations.”

“How do we install the chip?” Vestun asked. “It’s too small to attach to the outer hull. Anything bigger, and their sensors would find it.”

All eyes swung to Finn.

Poe had a bad feeling about this.

Finn stepped forward. “We will board the Finalizer undercover and install it in her mainframe.”

“We would never be able to board,” Vestun insisted. His voice bore a turbulent edge.

“Such a mission was never possible before,” Leia conceded. “But Finn’s knowledge of First Order protocol and the layout of the Finalizer opens new doors for us. We can infiltrate the First Order from within. Finn will lead this mission. Vestun, I need a hardware man to install the chip; Thera will run coding so that the mainframe does not reject the chip.”

“And me?” Poe asked. TIE fighters only held two. Their math was faulty.

“You are the only pilot that knows how to fly a TIE fighter. You will escort Finn to the Finalizer, and walk Vestun through flying the second fighter.”

“Second? Since when do you have two TIE fighters?” A wave of irritation filled Poe. Did Leia no longer trust him with classified information after what had happened with Skywalker’s map? Before, she never would have kept this from him.

“It was discovered limping through space a few hours ago. It’s on its way here.”

“It will never work.” Poe turned to Finn. “Your number has been disabled and flagged for months. They’ve probably got you set to designation: kill on sight.”

“We won’t use my serial number. We recovered the IDs of the troopers assigned to the fighters.”

“So? You said yourself that wayward troopers and ships have mere hours to check in before they are pronounced dead and their clearances wiped. The fighter we refurbished has been missing—what?—six weeks? We would be walking into a massacre.”

“Fighters got flung to all corners of the galaxy upon Starkiller’s blast. Despite the directive to return within a set number of hours, that does not mean to simply give up if unable to do so. Troopers are instructed to return to base at all costs. Our sources reveal that a steady stream of TIE fighters have returned over the past few months. Our two would not be out of place.”

“And then what? We all get sent to reconditioning?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

“Theoretically?!” This time it was Vestun.

“That is why time is of the essence.” Leia powered down the holomap. “The second TIE fighter will arrive in 48 hours. You need to be outfitted, prepped, and rested by then.”

“What about Kylo Ren?” One would only notice Leia’s flinch if they knew her well enough to spot it. Ackbar angled an apologetic bow, but someone had to say it. “What news of his whereabouts? Has he returned to the Finalizer?”

Poe felt Finn’s eyes on him. The name of Poe’s tormentor sent the hairs on the back of his neck standing. Regardless of the nature of his dreams — Echoes fueled by his own fears or _whatever_ — he had a healthy respect for Kylo Ren. He wanted nowhere near him.

Leia shook her head. “He is not on the Finalizer. His injury has him in hiding with Snoke.”

“Can your sources be trusted?”

“His ship has not been sighted in weeks,” Snap offered. “It was last seen heading for the uncharted regions.”

Poe tried to breathe at that, and he succeeded to the extent that he did not feel light-heated, but his heart _pounded._

When the meeting let out, the admirals dispersed. Leia led Thera and Vestun to engineering for follow-up on the installation process.

That left the command center empty, save for Poe and Finn, who kept peering at Poe with furrowed brows.

On their first night back from Takodana, Finn had appeared at Poe’s door, pillow and change of clothes in hand. Poe had been pacing all evening, anxious at the prospect of sleeping by himself after two blissfully dreamless nights on the Millennium Falcon. One look, not a word exchanged, and Finn had become Poe’s new roommate. Poe had never slept more soundly.

Well… sort of.

They would start the night on separate ends of Poe’s bed, but by morning Finn would be star-fished across the mattress, limbs draped over Poe like a second blanket. Finn was a stealth-snuggler. At first, Poe hadn’t minded. Waking to Finn’s face nuzzled in the crook of his neck or fingers skimming the small of Poe’s back evoked a smile every time. Finn never snored — another stormtrooper thing, apparently — but snuffling sounds escaped his parted lips from time to time. It was endearing… and maddening.

Every night, Poe awoke from an entirely different breed of distraction than the Echoes. He would roll onto his back and stare at the ceiling, berating himself for his body’s reaction. He’d will it at ease. He would count to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Then he would wonder why he counted at all. Counting never worked. Finn was… by the skies, Poe didn’t know. Oblivious? Asexual? Deeply in love with Rey? Poe did not want to ruin what they had by inviting emotions into the equation. He refused to upset the status quo. He depended on it. It gave him peace. Even as it disrupted his sleep just as much as the Echoes had.

“Poe—” Finn began.

“Don’t.” Poe pivoted on his heel and darted out the command center doors.

Finn followed him into the hall, voice hushed. “The Finalizer figured into many of your nightmares.”

“He won’t be there,” Poe said, because that was all that mattered.

Chewbacca waited in the hanger. Their original TIE fighter required final adjustments before Vestun was due to arrive for flight lessons. Poe and Chewbacca had come to a quiet truce as they pieced together the fighter in tandem. Leia claimed it was because Poe demonstrated many qualities of her late husband; a humbling compliment. Poe thought it more likely that the wookie appreciated his taciturn work ethic and ability to reconstruct the defunct fighter with little input. Chewbacca still mourned the loss of Han Solo. Poe could not imagine that reminders of his lost partner and friend would comfort so much as infuriate.

“Poe.” Finn’s hand fisted in Poe’s sleeve and wrested him around.

“What?” It came out crankier than he had intended. One glance at Finn’s doe eyes, the corners pinched with concern, filled Poe with contrition. He could not be irritated with Finn, not for caring. That was what made Finn… _Finn._

“I…” Finn’s gaze searched his face, darting from eye to eye. Heat skittered across Poe’s nape. “I’ll smuggle _maylon_ from the mess if the cook makes it again.”

 _Maylon_ was a crowd favorite amongst the Resistance, but it disappeared quickly whenever served. Poe’s long hours toiling over the TIE fighter had caused him to miss the last two servings.

Poe marched into Finn’s arms for a quick one-armed hug. “You are my hero, Finn.”

He felt Finn’s chuckle against his cheek. The warmth of it sent tremors skittering down his limbs.

Finn drew away. His smile faded ever so slightly as concern took its place. “You’re blushing.”

Poe gaped at him. “Since when do you know about that?”

“Since my friend does it all the time. I was worried you might be dying.” Finn tilted his head as if his gaze might penetrate the barriers Poe had erected. “Why are you embarrassed?”

“I’m not. I—” Poe had no idea what to say. _’I want to kiss you until I forget how to breathe’_ was not going to happen. “We need to concentrate on the mission.”

It was the right thing to say, for Finn was anything if not dutiful. He cast Poe one last assessing look before departing.

* * *

Poe did not return to base until well into the night.

The TIE fighter would never be good as new. Her communications system had shattered and steering was stubborn no matter how much Poe doctored her controls. But she flew. They would have to steer the two fighters in close range and rely on portable comlinks to manage the gap.

When Vestun had arrived at the hangar for lessons, his body had exuded anxious energy, from his shifting feet to darting gaze. It was his first active mission. Leia had indicated that they needed a hardware expert who could also fly. Apparently, Vestun was the singular one. From what Poe gathered, he was a mediocre pilot at best. He had no idea what an emergency hydraulic pump was, let alone when to use it, and his voice shook with each question.

A grand choice for one of the highest-tier missions Poe could ever remember the Resistance undertaking in his time flying for them. Although not as jittery as a youth, new to the Resistance and only now realizing the frightening reality of one’s own mortality, Vestun’s inexperience with a mission of this caliber put Poe on edge.

Their long day had grown exponentially longer when the TIE fighter’s fabritech sensor array had shorted, requiring an extra hour of swearing and tool-throwing surgery to get it into passable shape.

Finn was asleep by the time Poe trudged into his quarters several hours past nightfall, barely able to lift one foot ahead of the other.

The cook had not prepared maylon, but Finn had saved him a meal nonetheless, delivering Poe from an extra trip to the mess at this late hour. Poe inhaled the lukewarm food, shimmied out of his gear, and collapsed into bed beside Finn. He was asleep in seconds.


	9. The Mission

Finn donned his armor first.

“Make sure the leg grieves are not backwards,” he instructed, twisting his calf so they could see how the plastoid clasped the leg. “You’ll get shin splints if they cling to you in the wrong way. Believe me.”

Vestun looked as if he had not slept. Thera oozed excited energy.

Poe did not know how he felt. Unsettled. Somewhat out of his depth. Undercover missions were not Poe’s usual fare. Give him reconnaissance, hot pursuit, or gunfights any day. He was no actor. His incompetence at lying was practically infamous by now. Nothing about this plan was familiar or comfortable.

Finn straightened Thera’s shoulder pads, laughing when she asked a question about stormtrooper protocol. Something about bathroom breaks. Next, Finn knelt to fasten Vestun’s knee pads. He spoke to him as well, tone too soft to hear, though Vestun’s grimace did not dissipate in the slightest.

Poe’s clammy hands slipped on his armor.

A familiar set of hands seized Poe’s arm. He watched with academic interest as they adjusted his wrist gauntlets, skin a striking contrast to the sterile, emotionless white.

“White isn’t your color.” Finn said quietly, not looking up.

“Nor yours,” Poe replied.

It had been ages since Finn had donned stormtrooper white. Since that time, he had become his own person. Poe worried how wearing the armor again would affect him. Would flashes of his old life — old way of thinking — invade his mind? Would his conditioning kick into gear, leaving him torn and unable to find peace?

“Stop that,” Finn scolded him.

“Stop what?”

A crooked smile crossed Finn’s lips, though it was incongruous with the stormy brown of his eyes. “I wear the armor. It doesn’t wear me.”

“Doesn’t call to mind any homicidal thoughts?”

“Never did. That was the problem.” Finn retrieved Poe’s helmet, eyeing it quietly. His gloved fingers brushed the lip of the helmet. His expression, usually so open, was unreadable. Poe wondered if Finn had known this particular trooper.

If there were a way to discern one’s serial number from their uniform, Poe had not discovered it. He had expected to find it etched inside the helmet or next to the visor, but the uniforms all appeared identical.

“Listen,” Poe said, leaning in. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Act like a stormtrooper for a day?” Finn had a way of making Poe sound like an overreacting mother. “I did it for a lifetime.”

“Not like this, you didn’t. This is subterfuge. This is sneaking into the sarlaac’s pit to face your past and deal a great blow. It’s not the same as quietly sneaking off into the stars.”

“I never fit in. Subterfuge was my middle name.”

“Quit that. It’s me, here. Not the general. You don’t have to wear this facade for me.”

“It’s not a facade. I’m ready.”

Poe carded his hands through his hair, frustrated but unable to find the apposite words to kick sense into Finn. Why was he being so obstinate? It was not a weakness to feel fear; to admit misgivings in the wake of facing one’s harrowing past. There was no way Finn felt the ease he feigned.

Their argument would have to wait, however, because Leia arrived at that moment with sundry last-minute directives.

The next hour became an exercise in controlled chaos. Finn disappeared into the control tower to gather their codes and serial numbers. Thera and Vestun convened over their engineering kit.

Poe began start-up protocol on the reconstructed TIE fighter. He would bring her to the transport barge ahead of the others. He needed to ascertain the state of the second fighter before deciding who would fly which. Whichever one Vestun piloted needed to be the least moody, its systems preset to require minimal input. Poe would handle whichever ended up being the bucking fathier.

Which appeared to be the second TIE fighter. Poe cursed under his breath as he ducked beneath its wing and eyed the damage. The Resistance’s engineers had patched it enough to manage flight, but just barely. The transport barge would bring them within range of the Finalizer, since neither fighter could power through hyperspace on its own steam, but they needed to be able to accomplish that final trek to the destroyer’s hangar at a minimum.

Exactly an hour and a half later, the barge entered hyperspace.

Poe sat on a crate opposite Finn in the cargo bay. Finn’s body language mirrored his: arms crossed, a wall between the two of them.

Finn broke the silence first. “I don’t understand why you’re upset. Do you want me quaking in my boots? Do you want me too panicked to think straight? What good will that do?”

“That’s not it at all. Going back to the Finalizer is major. You act like it’s nothing.”

“I lived on the Finalizer. I’m not afraid of it.”

“Well, I am.” There. He said it.

Finn’s stony expression cracked. “You are?”

Poe gave him a look that said: _‘I know you are not that stupid.’_

“Last time I was there, I got _tortured._ I failed my general by giving up BB-8. I thought I would die with that burden on my shoulders. And then, after Kylo Ren visited that second time….”

Finn regarded Poe for a long moment, then leaned forward to take Poe’s face in his hands. Poe’s heartbeat skipped and stuttered as Finn pressed their foreheads together. He could feel puffs of Finn’s breath on his face. 

For a moment he had thought Finn was going to kiss him.

“It’s not the Finalizer I fear.” Finn’s thumbs stroked Poe’s cheeks. “I know what I’m doing.”

“But…?”

“But I never wanted you on this mission, even as I knew in its earliest stages that your flying was as central as my knowledge of the First Order. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

Poe covered Finn’s hands with his own. “Nothing will happen to me. Just take care of yourself, you hear?”

The transport intercom trilled, indicating an imminent termination of hyperspeed. They clamored to their feet.

It was time.

After checking all systems and running start-up on Vestun’s TIE fighter, Poe relinquished his seat. Thera saluted him and launched into her seat with zeal. Her optimism would be good for Vestun, who appeared to have mild indigestion.

Poe set their navigation to the Finalizer’s last verified coordinates.

Once they were in the stars, Finn’s voice arose from behind. “I’m impressed, Poe.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I was expecting some manner of barrel-rolling and stomach-turning acrobatics. You comported yourself like a professional.”

“Vestun is copying my every move,” Poe replied, laughing. “I didn’t want him thinking that is how one flies a TIE fighter and crash into us by accident.”

“My insides are grateful for Vestun’s poor piloting skills.”

“Besides, we don’t want either fighter to randomly fall apart in space.”

There was a long pause, then: “Don’t say that.”

Poe grinned.

Silence fell over the fighter as Poe tracked their progress. It was odd flying without BB-8’s light chatter and random tidbits about systems passed and cultures unknown. Finn was quiet behind him, so Poe tried to keep his monitoring unobtrusive, setting the computer to binary rather than audio readouts.

Whatever Finn needed to do to prepare, Poe would not distract him.

The unease churning deep within him grew as stars whizzed by like ethereal streamers; as the gap between their coordinates and those of their destination narrowed. A keen awareness of his own powerlessness swept over Poe. This mission felt wrong. His fate lie in hands other than his own, and that was new. Disconcerting. Not how Poe usually operated.

It wasn’t that Poe didn’t trust Finn. He trusted him with his life… but their survival rested on too few factors for Poe’s comfort. One factor, to be exact. If something happened to Finn, even mere separation, there was nothing for it. They would be stranded. Doomed. Poe did not appreciate those odds.

The control panel beeped twice. Poe shook his head and inspected the panel.

“Coming up on the Finalizer’s last location.”

“Here we go,” Finn muttered.

And there she was. The resurgent-class destroyer had not moved since Snap’s reconnaissance. It loomed like an arrowhead dipped in poison, poised to strike. A knot formed in Poe’s throat.

The communications radio growled with static.

“They’re hailing us,” Finn said. “Open transmission.”

_“TIE fighter 53601. Please identify.”_

Finn cleared his throat. “TM-0934 and YL-8027, requesting docking clearance.”

_“TM-0934 and YL-8027, you were flagged as missing one week ago.”_

“Roger that. Our ion maneuvering jets were disabled near Rakata Prime. We’ve been floating in the black, waiting for someone to respond to our distress signal. TIE fighter 40097 found us two days ago and gave our engines a kick-start.”

_“We have received no response from TIE fighter 40097.”_

“Roger that. Their communications are crippled.”

There was a long pause, then: _“Submit the clearance code for docking passage.”_

“Roger.”

Poe closed the transmission. “Did that sound promising to you?”

“It sounded standard.” The sound of Finn typing the clearance code filled the dual cockpit. “If they were suspicious, they would have asked more questions and required further codes.”

_“TIE fighter 53601, you are cleared for Docking Bay 6. Can you communicate this to TIE fighter 40097?”_

“Roger. We are within range of their comlink signal.”

Poe steered the limping fighter below the destroyer’s underbelly, Vestun and Thera close behind. His knuckles grew white as he circumvented the ion cannons. Any moment, they could take aim and fire.

“Helmets on, everyone.”

The docking bay’s threshold lights began to flash at their approach. Innumerable white specks — stormtroopers, Poe realized — scattered as the platform lights indicated Poe and Vestun’s designated landing zones.

A sense of smallness struck Poe as he fed the ship through the hangar’s angled rafters. He remembered the feeling of awe that first time, when he had been manhandled down the Atmospheric Assault Lander’s ramp into the massive hangar. The Finalizer had been constructed in secret, a screaming violation of the New Republic’s disarmament treaties, and he had not expected the towering pillars and orderly rows of TIE fighters. She was a magnificent ship, the likes of which had not existed since the Empire and certainly not his lifetime.

Poe lowered the fighter with practiced ease, but even Finn hissed at the ungainly clunk of Vestun’s sloppy landing beside them.

“That could have gone better,” Poe said. His voice echoed back at him, magnified in a strange way behind the helmet.

“Good thing we can blame it on her damage.”

The back hatch opened with a hiss of released gasses. They climbed out, one after the other, and waited for Vestun and Thera.

Five stormtroopers had entered the hangar and were heading towards them.

“Captain Tharos,” Finn greeted, standing at attention. Poe mimicked him, and spared a thought that he sorely missed his peripheral vision, as he could not tell whether Thera and Vestun had followed suit.

“TM-0934.” The stormtrooper with the red pauldron braced his blaster across his chest and surveyed Finn from head to toe. “Report.”

“We engaged in battle with a Resistance fighter near Rakata Prime. A blast to our ion maneuvering jets paralyzed us.”

“Did you send a distress signal?”

“Yes, Captain, but our ship got thrown into the Unknown Regions, out of communication range. We were on our last reserves when RB-0819 and TW-4221 stumbled across us.”

No wonder Finn had a talent for numbers. The call-signs and serial numbers had already become tangled in Poe’s mind.

“RB-0819?”

There was a long pause in which panic materialized in Poe’s chest. Which one of them was that?

“We were shot down over the moon of Neian,” Thera said, finally. “We managed to land, but the damage to the port engine was significant. It took weeks to repair it enough for flight.”

“How did you manage that?”

“We sold our blasters and anything else we could manage to the locals for parts.”

With a gesture of his head, the captain indicated that the trooper to his left should inspect the ship in question.

Poe fought the urge to track his movement. Getting shot in the back was not how he wanted to go.

“Did you send a distress signal?”

“No, Captain.” Thera had a strong, confident tone. It was dumb luck that the captain had not addressed Vestun. His voice had rattled like a speeder clogged with construction dust over the comlink. “Our communications system fragmented from the blast.”

The captain’s attention moved past them, to the inspecting trooper. He must have received confirmation, because he lowered his blaster. “Is anyone injured?”

“No, Captain,” Finn said. “Just hungry.”

There was that Finn sense of humor. It was dry, as ever, and a most welcome reminder of his friend’s presence behind the forbidding mask.

“Report to my division at once. You'll need evaluations before I can give any clearances to visit the commissary.”

“Yes, Captain. On our way.”

Was that it? Poe’s chest released its vice-like grip on his lungs.

Finn must have sensed his stupefaction, because he elbowed Poe and took a step forward. Gathering himself, Poe fell in line. They continued into the shiny black corridors without pursuit or interruption, not a single whizzing blast of laser fire.

Their first initiative was to appropriate new identities. Their current ones were not only offline, but provided they somehow managed to pass the First Order’s lengthy reinstitution assessment, their every movement would be monitored for days. According to Finn, the likelihood of Poe lasting more than a minute in reconditioning was as slim as General Hux taking up pod-racing. The easier alternative required immobilizing four new stormtroopers.

‘Four?!’ Poe had exclaimed when Leia had relayed this, to which she had replied, ‘Quietly.’ There were moments in which Poe both loved and hated that woman.

Finn slipped into a narrow passageway and motioned for them to huddle close. “We’ll wait here. These cameras only face the main corridor.”

Dubious, Poe surveyed the passage. There was no traffic to speak of. It was going to be a long wait.

They picked off stormtroopers piecemeal. The first lent his uniform and serial number to Finn, the second to Thera. The next would go to Vestun. They were the indisputable crux of the mission. As much as Poe did not want to hide in a closet for the duration of the mission, he was not fundamental to installing the tracking device. That was the reality of being a pilot. One was only important on the bookends of a mission. In the middle, they were that nuisance child given a meaningless task to make them feel useful.

There was no failsafe way to hide the bodies. Finn chose a nearby sanitation closet, which would suffice until rounds commenced in two hours. Poe’s eyes burned as he and Vestun tucked the two stormtroopers amongst canisters of stringent cleaners.

As Vestun struggled to shut the door, a difficult task when limp limbs seemed to want to flop into the threshold to block their path, a pair of stormtroopers rounded the corner.

Their blasters rose in perfect unison. “Hey!”

Poe raised his hands. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Before the two stormtroopers could respond, Finn and Thera sprang. Within seconds, they had both troopers disarmed and unconscious on the floor.

Poe collected the ankles of one while Finn clasped his arms. Together, they dragged his slack form from sight.

“ _It’s not what it looks like?_ Honestly, Poe.”

“Oh, hush.” Poe removed his helmet and knelt to unlatch the stormtrooper’s breastplate. Finn had already loosened the grieves, and moved onto the left knee pad. “My mouth has a mind of its own in tense situations.”

“There was a _mind_ involved?”

“Could have been worse.”

“You sure?”

Once everyone was outfitted, Finn put them in formation. Thera took the position of honor — of _safety_ — beside Finn, while Vestun and Poe held the rear. It was an odd sensation, marching through the endless corridors, the click of their boots familiar, but only because they sent warning bells blaring in the head. The sound of marching steps, the sight of stormtroopers nearing, had always portended danger. After a lifetime training himself to respect these signals; Poe could not turn those battle-hardened instincts off at a whim. With every stormtrooper they passed, Poe expected shouts of ‘get them!’ and blasts to rain on them.

The lower control room was nestled deep in the bowels of the Finalizer. It was less likely to invite company, as most favored the central location of the upper decks. Poe tried to memorize their route, but lost track after the fourth turn. That settled that. Poe was never leaving Finn’s side.

“This is it,” Finn said. They had not seen another living being in minutes, even longer since a mouse droid had scurried past. The double doors swept open to reveal the control room and its backup server.

“Can we…?” Thera motioned to her helmet.

Finn hesitated, reluctance visible in the tilt of his head. “Can you keep it on?”

“I’ll make do. Vestun, the prybar?”

“Do we need to disable the panel, first?”

As the technicians sorted through their toolkit, pieces fanned across the floor, Finn gestured for Poe’s attention. “We need to disengage the tractor beam so that we can get off this floating deathtrap.”

“And you know how to do that?”

“I hope so,” Finn said.

Poe wished he were not wearing the helmet so Finn could feel the weight of his irritated glare. “That’s comforting.”

Finn flicked Poe’s helmet, right next to the ear, clearly knowing exactly how the sound would reverberate in Poe’s ear. Poe tried to flick him back in retaliation, but Finn ducked out of reach. The helmet distorted Poe’s depth perception enough that he missed completely.

“It’s going to be a bit of a hike.”

Poe’s hand rose to rub his eyes, before he remembered the helmet. It was starting to get heavy. When this mission was over, his neck would need a massage. “Good thing I’m wearing such feather-light hiking gear,” he muttered.

Finn chuckled under his breath as he keyed open the doors. It was an odd sound. Stormtrooper helmets were not meant to filter wry laughter.

Although Poe did not want to look a gift taun-taun in the mouth, he was feeling increasingly ill at ease about the mission _because_ of its apparent ease. No matter how well-laid the plans, missions of this level of risk never went so smoothly. Finn was a capable strategist, but he was no Jedi with the gift of supernatural foresight. It was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. 

Poe hated himself for thinking it, knowing that most soldiers would accuse him of jinxing the mission with such thoughts.

They walked for what felt like miles before they reached their destination. It was a cavernous space with ceilings too high to see. Columns of control panels lined the floor like trees, dense as a rainforest. Poe went cross-eyed at the notion that one of these panels was theirs. How would they ever find it?

“How did we get roped into this task?” Poe asked, not for the first time.

“If we left you to wire the computer, we’d be doomed.”

“You don’t know anything about computers either.”

“Which is why we’re doing this task. Help me count.”

The tractor beam panel was one-hundred and forty-two down and three to the left. When they found it, Finn cranked the lever. The green lights flickered, then turned red.

Too damn easy.

As they headed back to the control room, the intercom system erupted with a series of blaring notes. Poe’s instincts shouted at him to duck, even as his brain told him the alarm was not blaster fire.

“They’ve discovered us!”

Finn snickered. “That’s an announcement signifier.”

“Why is it so loud?”

“Not every sector of the Finalizer is quiet. Some are running fighting simulations.”

 _“Attention all squadrons,”_ a female voice rang out. _“All personnel to Docking Bay 1. Repeat, all personnel to Docking Bay 1. Landing crew, prepare for arrival.”_

Finn turned his head slowly — pointedly — and Poe did not need to see his face to recognize the ‘I told you so.’

“Shut up.”

“Didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

As they rounded the final corner, Finn seized Poe’s arm and yanked him back with such force that Poe’s helmet struck the wall behind him.

“What—ow!” The metallic clang sent his ears ringing. It was ten times worse than Finn’s flick.

“Shh!” Finn pressed close.

After a strained moment, he peered around the corner. Poe followed just in time to see Thera thrust out of the control room, sans helmet. Her hands were shackled. Vestun was nowhere to be seen.

“Shit,” Poe said with feeling.

“This will complicate things.” There was no trace of irony in Finn’s voice.

A stormtrooper clad in an unusual uniform of chrome followed, blaster directed at Thera’s back. Finn hissed a breath.

“What?” Poe whispered.

“Captain Phasma. Han and I put her down a trash compactor.”

“Those things have doors.”

Phasma pivoted on her heel and spotted them. “ML-3415, KN-3129!”

Finn’s hand grazed Poe’s elbow, one of the few breaks in armor where he could feel touch. “Stand up straight and let me do the talking.”

As if Poe had machinations to do otherwise.

Side by side, they rounded the corner.

“Captain?”

Phasma advanced, her height growing until she stopped before them. She was of a height with Chewbacca. “You were summoned to Docking Bay 1 with the rest of the squadrons. What are you doing here?”

“We’re the backup.” There was no hesitation in Finn’s voice, but it was noticeably lower in tone.

Unlike Captain Tharos, this was someone who had known Finn quite well. Phasma was Finn’s former captain. There was every reason to disguise his voice.

“Backup?” Her voice grew deadly quiet. “I have everything under control.”

“The control deck sent us. They said that given your track record securing control rooms—”

An angry growl rumbled from beneath her helmet. “Enough! Report to Docking Bay 1 as commanded.” Without another word, Phasma stormed off in the opposite direction.

A glance into the control room, now abandoned, revealed Vestun’s lifeless body sprawled on the floor like a broken doll.

“Vestun!”

Poe dove to the floor, cradling the back of Vestun’s head with one hand while he searched for a pulse with the other. Nothing.

From his position on the floor, Poe spotted the still forms of three stormtroopers. One of them still bore the smoking wound of a well-placed blaster shot. It would appear that Vestun had a valuable skill beyond hardware and basic piloting.

“Is he…?” Finn’s voice was hushed, as if he could not bring it to volume. From the clench of his quivering fists to his careful distance from the carnage, he was visibly shaken.

“Damn,” Poe sighed and stood. There were no signs of their toolkit. The equipment had either been confiscated or Thera and Vestun had managed to hide it in the chaos of being discovered. “Do you think she finished the install?”

“It doesn’t matter. They know she was in the system. They will wipe the server to short out any unwanted programs, and interrogate her to ascertain what she did.”

“Double damn.”

“We need to get out of here.” Finn paused in the doorway, unable to take his eyes off Vestun’s lifeless body.

Poe put a hand on his shoulder, not sure whether Finn could feel it. “Keep your mind on the here and now, Finn.”

“He did not need to die.”

“No one does, but it is a risk we knowingly take.” Finn did not move. “Come on. Let’s go find Thera.”

The reminder of their mission galvanized Finn into action. He stormed down the corridor at a punishing pace. Poe had to jog to keep up.

After the third right turn, Poe sensed they were going the wrong direction. He had no basis for the feeling, but the dent in the pillar ahead looked similar to one Poe had noted when they had first arrived.

“Where are we going?”

“Docking Bay 1.”

“We’ve got to find Thera.”

“We can’t,” Finn said. “Not now.”

“Don’t make me pull rank. Everyone went to the hangar. The halls are empty. This is our chance.”

Finn’s head shook, his pace steadfast. “We insulted Phasma. We are on her radar.”

“We? That was all you, Buddy.”

Finn continued as if Poe had never spoken. “She will track our progress to the docking bay to ensure we obeyed. We have to lie low. Act like innocent stormtroopers caught between a power play and disinterested in stirring the pot. Then we’ll make our move.”

“Someone’s coming.”

Two stormtroopers joined their trek, falling into line behind them, as if an invisible force told them to always seek straight lines and orderly strides. Finn marched just outside his peripheral vision, but Poe could sense his cool, calm presence beside him.

No longer able to communicate, Poe could not help but fester. Finn had a point about diverting attention from themselves, at least while Phasma harbored bruised pride over her visit to the trash compactor. But Thera was in real danger. They had all been trained to resist interrogation, but that did not make tolerating the mental and physical pain of it easy. It had taken every ounce of strength Poe possessed to withstand Hux’s questioning before Kylo Ren had been summoned to take over.

Poe stopped in his tracks as they entered the hangar. This one was triple the size of Docking Bay 6, but its colossal pilasters and extravagant durasteel sheen were not what knocked the breath from him. The white was dizzying. Hundreds, if not thousands of stormtroopers stood in formation. The desire to turn tail and run was overwhelming.

Poe reached blindly for Finn’s hand. When he found it, he clamped down hard. Instead of shaking free, Finn moved closer. “Stay calm.”

Poe smiled despite himself, recalling a very different time in a hangar not far from here when Finn had said those exact words. “Me or you?”

Finn huffed a soft laugh.

As they wove through the lines of stormtroopers, their company dispersed to their spots. How anyone could discern a specific post in the sea of white was beyond Poe.

Finn leaned in, tone so low Poe had to strain to hear him. “I’ll get you to your position. Once you are there, stand tall, don’t fidget, and if anyone speaks to you, just shrug your shoulders. It is better to say nothing than the wrong thing.”

Poe’s insides lurched. “What—you’re leaving me?!” he hissed.

“Someone important is due to arrive. Probably Commander Oneira as his instatement to this post is long overdue. Once they are gone and formation breaks, wait for me. I will find you.”

“If you abandon me, I swear to the stars, I’ll haunt you in the afterlife.” Bile rose in Poe’s throat at the thought of losing sight of Finn, if even for a moment. He would never find him again.

“I’m not abandoning you. I won’t be far. Our numbers are close.”

“Close? I don’t even remember mine!”

“You are KN-3129.”

“I’ve already forgotten it.” 

Poe felt well within his rights to be salty. This was never the plan. To be fair, neither was Vestun and Thera getting ambushed. This was beginning to feel like a normal mission… gone sideways in every possible way. Except that this was a whole new breed of fucked. His piloting skills kept him alive when missions went awry, but they counted for nothing here.

“Don’t worry.” Finn’s hand tightened. “I’ll be right behind you… and over a few.”

“Over a few?!”

It came out louder than intended. Finn elbowed him _hard._

“Here. Don’t turn around.” And then Finn was gone.

Poe’s heart battered against his sternum.

A flurry of sensations enveloped him; drowned him. Shock. Vulnerability. He had never felt so alone while conversely surrounded by people in his life; so exposed. Each breath roared in his ears, uncomfortably amplified behind the helmet. If he’d had a bright red target painted across his white breastplate, he could not have been more obvious.

Despite the suit’s self-regulating environmental controls, his body burned with scorching heat. His palms were sodden with sweat. Moisture trailed down his forehead, beaded atop his lip, caught in his eyelashes. He blinked rapidly. Finn had demonstrated how to manually adjust the armor’s temperature, but Poe refused to move a muscle. Finn had told him not to fidget, and by the skies, he was going to follow his directions.

He trusted Finn. If only he had the Force, he would intimate that message across the gap between them. _‘I trust you, Finn,’_ he thought with every fiber of his being.

 _I want you to breathe, in and out, three times, and tell yourself that you are safe._ His own words. Poe closed his eyes and visualized Finn standing beside him, doing the same.

On his third gulp of air, Poe heard it. The bone-rattling growl of dual ion engines resonated across the hangar. It was an Upsilon class shuttle. Poe would know its throaty groan anywhere. It had left an indelible mark in his memory that fateful night on Jakku when it had rattled his bones and sent dust into the air. _Triple damn._

Poe’s eyes opened as the ship’s stabilizers disengaged from flight position. Both wings rose into the rafters. The pilot knew how to make an entrance. Despite its size and haggard rumble, the ship’s landing gear kissed the floor like a lover.

As the ramp extended, a pair of boots was already disembarking.

 _‘General Oneira, my foot,’_ Poe thought, dazed.

Descending the ramp at an efficient clip was General Hux himself, fine red hair coiffed to absolute perfection. A monsoon wind could pummel him from all sides before a single hair separated from the rest. Their sources had indicated that Hux had been assigned a new post, though they had been unable to ascertain where.

The official waiting at the bottom of the ramp bowed deeply and introduced himself as Commander Denea.

Someone followed behind. A long black cloak swished into view as its owner took a step.

Poe’s breath caught in his throat.

_He knew those steps._

It was common knowledge that Kylo Ren had suffered great injury on Starkiller, but the extent was startling to behold. A pronounced limp hampered his once powerful stride. His shoulders bore a tired hunch that Poe had never witnessed in his dreams.

Injury or not, his presence commanded the attention of the entire hangar. Lines of white shoulders straightened impossibly taller, the shifting of steps and tilting of heads arrested. No one dared move lest they draw the lethal attention of the tumultuous dark lord.

Poe followed suit and forced himself to inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Every muscle in his body trembled with tension. A drip of sweat trekked down his spine. His gaze locked onto the helmet ahead of him.

Silence swallowed the cavern like a woolen blanket; thick and itchy and oppressive.

Kylo Ren trailed behind Hux and Denea, head bowed. His entire demeanor struck Poe as suspiciously subdued. Where was the proud carriage of his nightly tormentor? This was a different man.

In a bizarre twist of fate, Poe thanked the stars for the helmet over his head. Thanked whatever divinities existed for the rows of faceless stormtroopers ahead of him. Not five minutes ago, he had feared becoming lost in the faceless sea of soldiers. Now, that anonymity was his savior.

Kylo drew level with Poe’s row… and jarred to a halt. Poe held his breath. His hands shook, but so did his neighbor’s. He could hear the rattle of someone’s blaster quivering against his or her breastplate behind him.

Although Poe’s view was partially obscured, he caught a glimpse of Kylo’s head craning back, as if listening for something. Poe’s heart plunged to his feet. If it weren’t for the lines of helmets in front of him, Kylo would be looking right at him.

General Hux had stopped. “Is something wrong?”

Denea was several steps ahead, as if he had not realized their entourage had halted until he was walking by himself.

Kylo stood like a statue, unmoving… then burst into action. He stormed through the lines of stormtroopers like a rampaging beast, his limp all but gone. His splayed palms threw alarmed troopers aside like reeds along a creek bed. As the final stormtrooper toppled to the floor, Kylo came toe-to-toe with Poe.

Poe, for his part, did not stumble backwards though every instinct in his body bellowed at him to flee at all costs. Finn’s words replayed in his head: _stand tall, don’t fidget, don’t speak._

“Ren?” Hux inquired. His tone was halting, as if unconvinced he wanted to know what had sent Kylo ramming through formation to draw up in front of this single stormtrooper.

Denea was almost comically wide-eyed.

“Captain.” The sound of Kylo’s deep, resounding voice after so long in its absence sent ice down Poe’s spine. “Is it in your habit to employ…” he cocked his head at Poe, _“civilians?”_

That was the moment Poe knew. That word — _civilians_ — it was too carefully chosen. Too personal.

It was too late to run. It was always too late to run.

Kylo tore Poe’s helmet from his head. A wave of murmurs spread across the ranks as his riotous curls spilled free.

“And the finest pilot of the Resistance, at that.” The expressionless mask could not hide the smugness in his voice. He leaned in, voice hushed; for Poe’s ears only. “Not just an Echo, I think.” Kylo’s gloved fingers traced the faded scratches on Poe’s cheek. “I told you we would meet again.”

Kylo’s hand dropped to the weapon in Poe’s hands and crushed the durasteel like tin. It clattered to the floor, useless.

Commander Denea scuttled forward. “My Lord, I don’t know how he got on board!”

“I imagine we have FN-2187 to thank for that. Homegrown to perfection, isn’t that right, Hux? I understand he goes by the name _Finn,_ now.”

Kylo’s gaze swept to the stormtrooper on Poe’s left. In a swift move, almost too fast to perceive with the naked eye, he attacked him. The petrified stranger expelled a high-pitched yelp as Kylo rent the man’s helmet from his head.

“I came alone.” Poe’s voice held more confidence than he felt.

“You can’t lie worth a damn, and you know it, Poe Dameron.”

Kylo charged the stormtrooper to Poe’s right. When he found another wide-eyed, pallid face, he struck the man’s breastplate hard enough to send him careening into the line of troopers behind him.

“Where is he?” he shouted as he lobbed the helmet behind Poe. The crack of plastoid hitting plastoid filled the cavernous hangar.

“He’s not here,” Poe repeated.

How could Kylo not sense Finn, when he had discovered Poe amongst a crowd of thousands? What was it about Finn that nullified Kylo Ren’s great command of the Force? It was baffling.

“Sir,” Denea interjected. “We caught two impostors in the lower control room shortly before your arrival. One is dead, and the other is being interrogated as we speak. Clearly the Resistance has infiltrated us. We’ve received many returning fighters over the past few weeks. They could have slipped aboard any one of them.”

A fist delved into Poe’s hair before he knew what hit him, jerking his head back. He cried out and tumbled to his knees, forced there by Kylo’s punishing grip.

“Lie to me again. Give me an excuse to snap your neck. What is his number?”

Poe gave up lying. An idiot would know Finn was behind this. “You’ll never find him.”

A deadly silence hovered over the hangar. Several stormtroopers backed away in anticipation of the explosion.

“Tell me the traitor’s number!” Kylo’s other hand reached for Poe’s forehead. “Tell me!” 

Tendrils of the Force wove between his fingers, invisible though Poe imagined he could discern a bluish hue. Without waiting for a response, Kylo delved into his mind. The sickening sensation was overwhelming. Poe’s mind felt ravaged, its greatest secrets rifled through and discarded as if they meant nothing.

“I don’t know!” Poe gasped. His hands clawed at Kylo’s wrist. “I can’t remember my own number, let alone his.”

A disgusted sound filtered through Kylo’s helmet. He dashed Poe to the floor, where he lie sprawled for a dazed moment. His mind felt muddled.

“Bind his wrists and bring him to my quarters.”

“Your quarters?” Denea interjected. “Don’t you mean—”

“Bring him to my quarters!”

Kylo stalked off.

Poe felt hands on him.

With all of his might, he willed Finn to save himself. To break Thera out and flee before it was too late. This was not going to end well.


End file.
